Exhaustion of petroleum resources is seriously accelerating, hence, it is crucial to find renewable energies and change the global energy consumption structure. Biomass energy is the only carbon ‐ containing energy currently available and is irreplaceable in the preparation of fuels and chemicals. This study focuses on the transformation of furfuryl alcohol to ethyl levulinic acid ester using our prepared catalyst consisting of ionic liquid on polystyrene microspheres. The catalyst was characterized by IR, TG, XRD, BET and XPS techniques. In the presence of our catalyst, the conversion of furfuryl alcohol and ethyl levulinic acid yield was 98.54 % and 92.41 %, respectively. Repeated experiments showed that the acidic sites on the catalyst were occupied, slightly decreasing catalytic performance. However, after soaking and washing in concentrated sulfuric acid the catalytic activity was recovered, indicating immobilization on catalyst's surface and its stability during the reaction.

In this study, the alcoholysis of furfuryl alcohol (FA) into ethyl levulinate (EL) using a deep eutectic solvent (DES) composed of choline chloride (ChCl) and ethanol was investigated by experiments and calculations. Experimental results reveal that the addition of 5-sulfonic acid salicylic acid (5-SSA) can catalyze the alcoholysis of FA to produce EL. The combined presence of ChCl and 5-SSA significantly improved the selectivity for EL. The mechanism of the alcoholysis of FA to EL in acidic DES was investigated by density functional theory (DFT) calculations in Gaussian 03. It was found that hydrogen-bond acceptor ChCl is coupled with hydrogen-bond donor ethanol to form a structure similar to HCl and ethoxy, which facilitates the alcoholysis of FA into EL.