Tailoring the catalytic performance of Cu/SiO2 for hydrogenolysis of biomass-derived 5-hydroxymethylfurfural to renewable fuels

Hongyan Jia; Qing Lv; Qineng Xia; Wanpeng Hu; Yanqin Wang

doi:10.3389/fchem.2022.979353

Tailoring the catalytic performance of Cu/SiO₂ for hydrogenolysis of biomass-derived 5-hydroxymethylfurfural to renewable fuels

Front Chem. 2022 Aug 22:10:979353. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.979353. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Hongyan Jia¹, Qing Lv², Qineng Xia¹, Wanpeng Hu¹, Yanqin Wang²

Affiliations

¹ College of Biological, Chemical Science and Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, China.
² Shanghai Key Laboratory of Functional Materials Chemistry, Research Institute of Industrial Catalysis, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Efficient conversion of biomass-derived 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to renewable fuels such as 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) and 2,5-dimethyltetrahydrofuran (DMTHF) is of significance for sustainable energy supply. For efficient catalyst design, it is important to understand the catalytic behavior and clarify the influence of physico-chemical properties of catalyst on reaction performance. Herein, to study the structure-activity relationships of monometallic Cu catalysts for HMF hydrogenolysis, a series of Cu/SiO₂ catalysts with different physico-chemical properties were prepared and compared for their catalytic performance in HMF hydrogenolysis. It was found that Cu/SiO₂-HT-8.5 catalyst prepared by hydrothermal method showed excellent activity in HMF hydrohydrolysis reaction. Under the optimal reaction condition, the total yield of liquid fuels reaches 91.6% with 57.1% yield of DMF and 34.5% yield of DMTHF in THF solvent. Characterizations such as XRD, H₂-TPR, N₂-adsorption/desorption, TEM and XPS revealed that the Cu particles in the Cu/SiO₂-HT-8.5 catalyst have uniform size and high dispersion. The Cu species and the SiO₂ support have relatively weak interaction and are easy to be reduced to Cu⁰, which makes it show excellent activity in the hydrogenolysis of HMF.

Keywords: 2,5-dimethylfuran; 5-hydroxymethylfurfural; Cu/SiO2 catalyst; hydrogenolysis; renewable fuels.