2,5-Dimethylfuran (DMF) has been considered a promising biofuel additive, potentially derived from renewable resources. There have been various reports on DMF production from hydrogenation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). However, most reports employed high hydrogen pressure, long reaction times, and reactions under batch conditions. In this study, Cu−Pd bimetallic catalysts incorporated on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) were used for selective hydrogenation of HMF to DMF using 2-propanol as hydrogen donor under continuous flow conditions. Synthesized catalysts were characterized by N 2 physisorption, SEM-EDX, XRD, XPS, TEM, and H 2 -TPR techniques. 10Cu-1Pd/RGO exhibited 96% HMF conversion with 95% DMF yield under optimum reaction conditions with good stability with time on stream. XRD and XPS results pointed to the presence of a palladium−copper alloy, which could enhance both the activity and especially the stability in the conversion of HMF toward DMF. The effect of temperature, pressure, and feed flow rate were also investigated on the catalytic performance. The stability of catalyst was tested for 8 h time on stream, where it was found that the catalyst displayed good stability.

Ni/SiO 2 (Ni/SF) catalysts were prepared by electrospinning of the SF followed by impregnation. The performance of the Ni/SF catalysts for hydrogen production from ethanol steam reforming at various conditions was investigated in comparison with a conventional Ni/silica porous (Ni/SP) catalyst. The influence of the Ni/SF catalyst preparation methods on the catalytic activity and stability in ethanol steam reforming was also studied. The catalysts were prepared by three different preparation techniques: impregnation (IM), deposition precipitation (DP) and strong electrostatic adsorption (SEA). The Ni/SF catalyst exhibited higher performances and stability than the Ni/SP catalyst. The H 2 yields of 55% and 47% were achieved at 600 • C using the Ni/SF and Ni/SP catalysts, respectively. The preparation methods had a significant effect on the catalytic activity and stability of the Ni/SF catalyst, where that prepared by the SEA method had a smaller Ni particle size and higher dispersion, and also exhibited the highest catalytic activity and stability compared to the Ni/SF catalysts prepared by IM and DP methods. The maximum H 2 yield produced from the catalyst prepared by SEA was 65%, while that from the catalysts prepared by DP and IM were 60% and 55%, respectively, under the same conditions. The activity of the fiber catalysts prepared by SEA, DP and IM remained almost constant at all times during a 16 h stability test.

The mechanochemical incorporation of catalytically active Al species in low loadings was successfully accomplished into the framework of mesoporous silica (SBA-15 and MCM-41) materials using a simple wet milling approach (with aluminum isopropoxide as source of aluminum) and a dry milling approach (using low quantities of Al-containing MOF materials). Characterization data pointed to the successful incorporation of Al species (typically with loadings of ca. 0.2–0.4 wt %) that were mostly tetrahedrically coordinated. Despite such extremely low loadings, the isolated aluminum oxide species exhibited promising activities and stability in selective mild oxidations under various conditions (microwave irradiation and mechanochemistry), including the selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde, isoeugenol to vanillin, and diphenyl sulfide to diphenyl sulfoxide, as compared to similarly synthesized impregnated catalysts.