Catalytic Selective Hydrogenolysis Of Biomass-derived Furfuryl Alcohol Over Nanocopper Catalysts

The resources shortage and environmental problems have become more and more serious with the increasing requirement for raw material with the development of society. Biomass is the most diverse and the most abundant sustainable resource in nature. Thus, the utilization of renewable biomass could not only efficiently alleviate the resources shortage, but also the environmental pollutionproblems.. Pentanediols and hexanediols are important chemicals with wide utilizations.The production of pentanediols and hexanediols from lignocellulose-derived furan derivatives, such as furfural, furfuryl alcohol, tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol,5-HMF, ect, has attracted much attention in recent years.This work mainly focused on studying the selective hydrogenolysis of biomass-derived furfuryl alcohol to 1,2-and 1,5-pentanediol over copper nanocomposite catalysts. Firstly, the catalytic properties of Cu catalysts supported on different supports, such as SiO2, MgO, ZnO, Al2O3, TiO2 and ZrO2, were investigated. Cu-SiO2 was found to present both high catalytic activity and pentanediols selectivity.Then, the Cu-SiO2 catalysts with different Cu loading content were also investigated in the selectivehydrogenolysis furfuryl alcohol.10% Cu-SiO2-PG catalyst was found to exhibted the best catalytic performance, furfuryl alcohol with 24.7% conversion and 1,2- and 1,5-pentanediol with 31.9% and 16.3% selectivity, respectively, could be obtained at 140 ℃ and 8 MPa reaction pressure. Moreover, the effect of additives on the catalytic properties of 10%Cu-SiO2-PG for furfuryl alcohol hydrogenolysis were also investigated.Hydrotaleite-like compounds is one kind of layer double hydroxides (LDHs) consisting binary metals withunique properties for adjustable pore structure, exchangable interlamination anion, tunable particle size and distribution as well as high thermal stability. Based on these properties, a series of 10% Cu-Mg3AlO4.5 catalysts derived from LDHs precursors were prepared and used for furfuryl alcohol hydrogenolysis. The effect of pretreatment conditions of the LDHs precursors, such as synthesis temperatures, aged temperatures and calcined temperatures on the structure and catalytic preformance of the catalysts were investigated. Furfuryl alcohol conversions were obviously affacted by the tretreatment conditions, while the selectivities to 1,2- and 1,5-pentanediol were not affacted much. Thus, the optimal prepared conditions for the Cu-Mg3AlO4.5 catalysts were synthesis at 30℃, aged at 80℃ and calcined at 500℃,under which a high conversion furfuryl alcohol of 60.7% was obtained, and the selectivity to 1,2-and 1,5-pentanediol were 45.0% and 26.6%, respectively.