Abstract
Catalytic conversion of biomass-derived feedstock to high-value chemicals is of remarkable significance for alleviating dependence on fossil energy resources. MgAl spinel-supported Pt catalysts were prepared and used in furfuryl alcohol conversion. The approaches to tune the reaction selectivity toward pentanediols (PeDs) were investigated and the catalytic performance was correlated to the catalysts’ physicochemical properties based on comprehensive characterizations. It was found that 1–8 wt% Pt was highly dispersed on the MgAl2O4 support as nanoparticles with small sizes of 1–3 nm. The reaction selectivity did not show dependence on the size of Pt nanoparticles. Introducing LiOH onto the support effectively steered the reaction products toward the PeDs at the expense of tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (THFA) selectivity. Meanwhile, the major product in PeDs was shifted from 1,5-PeD to 1,2-PeD. The reasons for the PeDs selectivity enhancement were attributed to the generation of a large number of medium-strong base sites on the Li-modified Pt catalyst. The reaction temperature is another effective factor to tune the reaction selectivity. At 230 °C, PeDs selectivity was enhanced to 77.4% with a 1,2-PeD to 1,5-PeD ratio of 3.7 over 4Pt/10Li/MgAl2O4. The Pt/Li/MgAl2O4 catalyst was robust to be reused five times without deactivation.
Highlights
We developed a promising MgAl spinelsupported Pt catalyst, over which the product distribution was successfully tuned to 77.4%
Over the K- and Cs-modified Pt/MgAl2 O4 catalysts, no furfuryl alcohol (FFA) conversion was observed. These results demonstrate that both base type and strength are crucial for FFA hydrogenolysis to produce PeDs
These results suggest that the apparent activation energies for the three major products are different, largely following an order of Ea 1,2-PeD > Ea 1,5-PeD ~
Summary
The fossil oil depletion and environmental problems have stimulated the exploration of carbon-neutral resources. As a group of newly emerged top chemicals for biorefinery, furfural and its derivatives are suitable to prepare value-added alcohols via catalytic hydrogenation or hydrogenolysis reactions [1,2,3,4]. Among these products, pentanediols (PeDs), 1,2- and 1,5pentanediols (1,2-PeD and 1,5-PeD), belong to important value-added chemicals for the synthesis of polyesters, cosmetics, and low-toxic microbicides [5,6]. Great attentions have been dedicated to convert furfural or furfuryl alcohol (FFA) to PeDs [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]
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