Metal-organic frameworks as catalysts for sugar conversion into platform chemicals: State-of-the-art and prospects

Abstract

Apart from a short introduction that describes biomass and its platform chemicals; this manuscript endevours to analyze and classify the enormous literature that has been generated for biomass conversion over a new class of heterogeneous catalysts metal–organic frameworks (MOFs); the recent progress of sugar conversion over MOFs based catalysis into valuable chemicals such as 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) and the subsequent secondary platform chemicals such as 2,5-dimethylfuran, ethyl levulinate and lactic acid was investigated. The smart selection of MOFs’ building units and reaction solvents are critically discussed. The catalytic potential of different MOFs and composite MOFs was also investigated by demonstrating their remarkable performance with salutary examples relevant to biomass catalytic conversions into initial and secondary platform chemicals.This review also gives a state-of-the-art for the corresponding reaction kinetics and reaction mechanisms regarding the discussed sugar conversion.