Solid acid catalyst prepared via one step hydrothermal carbonization for production of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural in biphasic system

Abstract

As one of the most important precursor for various high-value chemicals, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is a biomass-derived compound that has gained increasing chemical research and industrial interests in recent years. In this study, production of HMF from direct dehydration of glucose was investigated with various types of catalysts prepared by a modified one-step HTC method. Two type of acids were employed for the functionalization of the catalyst, namely, 2-Hydroxyethylsulfonic acid (C2H6O4S) and Hydrochloric acid (HCl), making C-SO3H and C-HCl catalysts. Moreover, both of them were synthesized by adding acrylic acid to the C-SO3H-A and C-HCl-A catalysts. Their physicochemical characteristics and catalytic activities on glucose dehydration were also examined. Of the four types of catalysts, C-SO3 catalyst gave the highest HMF yield. Despite an increase in surface areas and total acidity, the catalysts with acrylic acid addition have decreased thermal stability based on TGA results and did not have significantly different effect HMF yield compared to those without acrylic acid. The highest HMF yield of 51.61% yield was obtained with 4:6 of water/GVL ratio, C-SO3H catalyst loading 0.5 wt% of glucose at 180 °C for 45 min. At this condition, the catalyst was also found to be recyclable on glucose dehydration up to at least five uses.