Tin-loaded sulfonated rape pollen for efficient catalytic production of furfural from corn stover

Abstract

Furfural is a versatile platform chemical that can be obtained from lignocellulose. In this work, tin loaded sulfonated solid acid that derived from the carbonized porous hollow rape pollen (SO42−/Sn-TRP), with highly-uniform dispersion of acid sites, was used for catalytic production of furfural from xylose and corn stover in biphasic system. SEM, EDS, FTIR, ICP, XRD, BET and Py-IR verified the co-existence of Lewis and Brønsted acids sites on the surface of SO42−/Sn-TRP catalyst for the promoting furfural production. The SO42−/Sn-TRP catalyst showed a high furfural yield of 82.79% and 77.82% from xylose and corn stover under the optimized conditions of 3 h at 170 °C and 190 °C, respectively. Moreover, the catalyst exhibited good reusability and stability after 5 recycles of operation, suggesting that the novel SO42−/Sn-TRP solid acid can be served as a highly-efficient heterogeneous catalyst for furfural production from abundant biomass.