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High performance mesoporous zirconium phosphate for dehydration of xylose to furfural in aqueous-phase

2013; Royal Society of Chemistry; Volume: 3; Issue: 45 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1039/c3ra43413c

2046-2069

Liyuan Cheng, Xiangke Guo, Chenhai Song, Guiyun Yu, Yuming Cui, Nianhua Xue, Luming Peng, Xuefeng Guo, Weiping Ding,

Supercapacitor Materials and Fabrication

The conversion of sugars to chemicals in aqueous-phase is especially important for the utilization of biomass. In current work, zirconium phosphate obtained by hydrothermal methods using organic amines as templates has been examined as a solid catalyst for the dehydration reaction of xylose to furfural in aqueous-phase. The use of dodecylamine and hexadecylamine in the synthesis process results in mesoporous zirconium phosphate with uniform pore width of ∼2 nm and in morphology of nanoaggregates, which is characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, N2 isothermal sorption, NH3 temperature-programmed desorption, FT-IR, and 31P MAS NMR spectroscopy. When used as a catalyst for xylose dehydration to furfural in aqueous-phase, the mesoporous zirconium phosphate presents excellent catalytic performance with high conversions up to 96% and high furfural yields up to 52% in a short time of reaction. Moreover, the catalyst is easily regenerated by thermal treatment in air and shows quite stable activity. The open structure with numerous active sites of the Brønsted/Lewis acid sites is responsible for the high catalytic efficiency of mesoporous zirconium phosphate.