Recent advances and mechanistic insights on the production of biomass-derived 2,5-bis(alkoxymethyl)furans

Abstract

Transforming biomass resources into high-quality liquid fuels is a very crucial, effective, and feasible approach in biorefinery processes. Among various biomass-derived liquid fuels, 2,5-bis(alkoxymethyl)furans (BAMFs), which can be produced from 2,5-bis(hydroxymethyl)furan (BHMF), 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), or fructose, are particularly attractive and widely considered to be a new type of biodiesel candidates or diesel additives due to their excellent physicochemical properties, such as high energy density, high cetane number, high boiling point, and strong stability, so they have received wide attention in recent years. At present, the relevant studies on the production of BAMFs are rapidly implementing, many progressive techniques are constantly developed and satisfactory results are increasingly obtained. However, up to now, a special, systematic and intensive review is still lacking in this research area. To better understand the current research situation, this review comprehensively summarizes and discusses different production methods and corresponding achievements of BAMFs, and emphatically analyzes the main functions and cooperative actions of active sites of catalysts in dehydration, reduction, and etherification reactions as well as the merits and demerits of exogenous and endogenous hydrogen systems. Moreover, this review also proposes several valuable and available ideas and viewpoints for the future studies of BAMFs. In a word, the main objective of this review is to draw more concerns about BAMFs and provide some theoretical references and technical supports for the high-efficiency, green, and economical production of BAMFs.