Hydrogenation of Furfural over Biomass-Based Electron-Deficient Co-NC Nanotube Catalyst
Zhu Zhu1,2, Guangyue Xu1,2
1Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, iChEM, CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Biomass Clean Energy, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Abstract:
The conversion of furfural to furfuryl alcohol is one of the most significant reactions from industrial-scale produced biomass platform molecules to value-added chemicals. In this work, biomass-based chitosan was used as both a carbon source and nitrogen source to synthesize nitrogen-doped carbon. With the addition of cobalt, the optimized 7.5Co-NC-900 catalyst had the largest surface area and the graphite nanotube structure with the least defects. It was employed for the hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol and reached a nearly full conversion and an equivalent yield at 130 °C in 4 MPa initial H2. The structure-function relationship study indicated that the N could interact with the neighbor Co in this catalyst and formed an electron-deficient Co center which was in favor of the adsorption of furfural in the nanotube and had high catalytic activity. The interactions between Co and N stabilized the catalyst so that it could remain stable in five runs of catalytic reactions.
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