Highly Selective Hydrogenation of Biomass-Derived Furfural into Furfuryl Alcohol Using a Novel Magnetic Nanoparticles Catalyst

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• 作者：Ahmed Halilu ; Tammar Hussein Ali ; Abdulazeez Yusuf Atta ; Putla Sudarsanam ; Suresh K. Bhargava ; Sharifah Bee Abd Hamid
• 刊名：Energy & Fuels
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：March 17, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：30
• 期：3
• 页码：2216-2226
• 全文大小：824K
• ISSN：1520-5029

文摘

Designing efficient and facile recoverable catalysts is desired for sustainable biomass valorization. This work reports the one-pot synthesis of a novel magnetic Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ nanocatalyst for hydrogenation of biomass-derived furfural into valuable furfuryl alcohol. Various techniques were used to systematically analyze the physicochemical properties of the Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ nanocatalyst. Vibrating sample magnetometer analysis reveals low coercivity of Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ (6.991 G) compared with that of Fe₃O₄–SiO₂ (27.323 G), which is attributed to highly dispersed Ni species in the Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ catalyst. HRTEM images indicated the nanosized nature of the Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ catalyst with an average diameter of ∼14.32 nm. The Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ catalyst showed a superior BET surface area (259 m²/g), which is due to the formation of nanosized particles. The magnetic Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ nanocatalyst shows a remarkable performance with 94.3 and 93.5% conversions of furfural and ∼100% selectivity of furfuryl alcohol at 90 °C and 20 H₂ bar and 250 °C and 5 H₂ bar, respectively. Using heptane as a solvent, the effect of temperature, pressure, reactant amount, and catalyst loading were investigated to optimize the reaction conditions. A probable mechanism via a non-hydrogen spillover route was proposed for the hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol over the magnetic Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ nanocatalyst. The efficiency of the magnetic Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ nanocatalyst is attributed to highly dispersed nickel species, which plays a key role in the dissociation of H₂ into a proton and a hydride in the furfural hydrogenation. The superior performance of the magnetic Fe(NiFe)O₄–SiO₂ nanocatalyst, along with the advantages of low cost and easy recoverability, could make it a new appealing catalyst in various selective hydrogenation reactions.