We prepared a sulfated TiO2/mordenite solid acid for the heterogeneous catalytic conversion of inulin (polysaccharide) to 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural and 2,5‐furancarboxaldehyde. The hydrolysis of inulin and the dehydration of fructose were performed by using a one‐pot method in a water/2‐butanol biphasic system. With an inulin conversion rate of 82.3 %, a high 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural yield of 61.5 % was obtained, which represents moderate catalytic reactivity and selectivity but facilitates the separation process comprehensively. The catalytic performance was attributed to the SO42− groups and the Lewis acid sites on the titania surfaces. A delicate loading rate of titania over mordenite was critical to maintain sufficient active sites, whereas an appropriate porosity of the complex system was reserved for the diffusion of reactants and products.

This work presents experimental and kinetic modeling studies on fructose dehydration to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) in the solution of mixed acetone and water, catalyzed by hydrochloric acid (HCl). A reaction scheme that added an intermediate was proposed. A corresponding kinetic model that considered the parameters, including temperature (383−423 K), initial substrate concentration (10−100 g/L), and catalyst concentration (5−60 mmol/L), was established, and the influence of solvent ratio (3−19) was also studied. The maximum yield was 91% in the ideal plug flow reactor under the optimized condition (T = 383 K, C F0 = 10 g/L, C HCl = 10 mmol/L). The model can well support the delicate reactor design since an industrially accessible HMF production process was proposed in this work.