Catalytic hydrolysis of cellulose to total reducing sugars with superior recyclable magnetic multifunctional MCMB‐based solid acid as a catalyst

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Effective cellulose hydrolysis has a huge potential for producing high value-added biomass-based platform chemicals, such as glucose, hydroxymethylfurfural, levulinic acid, and total reducing sugars (TRS). Particularly, a magnetic multifunctional solid acid catalyst (Fe 3 O 4 /Cl-MCMB-SO 3 H) was synthesized by loading the active groups on the magnetic mesocarbon microbead (MCMB) derived from the co-calcination of coal tar pitch and ferroferric oxide, which was applied as a catalyst in the conversion of cellulose into TRS. RESULTS: Given the superior properties of MCMB, a novel magnetic MCMB-based solid acid with cellulose-binding domain (-Cl group) and catalytic domain (-SO 3 H group) was successfully prepared. Results indicated that this catalyst exhibited superior catalytic activity, recyclability and regenerability, and easy separation from the reactant. The acidic densities of -SO 3 H and -Cl in Fe 3 O 4 /Cl-MCMB-SO 3 H reached 1.77 and 1.32 mmol/g, respectively. The 68.6% TRS yield can be obtained from cellulose at 140 ∘ C for 3 h in distilled water by using Fe 3 O 4 /Cl-MCMB-SO 3 H as the catalyst.The TRS yield still reached 61.1% after the catalyst was used six times. Importantly, through catalyst regeneration, the -SO 3 H density and TRS yield still reached 1.69 mmol/g and 67.3%, indicating that the catalyst exhibited excellent regenerability. CONCLUSION: Such multifunctional magnetic catalyst would be a promising catalyst in the conversion of cellulose into biofuels, which was attributed to the efficient catalytic performance, magnetism, and excellent recyclability and regenerability.

Bioinspired Cellulase-Mimetic Solid Acid Catalysts for Cellulose Hydrolysis

“…The efficiency of cellulose hydrolysis increases with the increase of the electronegativity (-NO 2 > -Cl > -NH 2 > -Br) of the binding groups ( Han et al, 2019 ), which is consistent with the observation by Shuai and Pan ( Shuai et al, 2012 ). A series of solid acid catalysts bearing -Cl were synthesized with different methods and enhanced glucose yields by about 2.5 times (93%) compared to the catalysts without -Cl (37%) ( Pang et al, 2014 ; Shen et al, 2014 ; Zhao et al, 2014 ; Zuo et al, 2014 ; Hu et al, 2016 ; Yang et al, 2016 ; Shen et al, 2017 ; Shen et al, 2018 ; Ding et al, 2019 ; Li et al, 2020 ; Li et al, 2020 ). These catalysts follow the same binding mechanism that proposed above for promoting cellulose hydrolysis efficiency.…”

Corncob-Derived Sulfonated Magnetic Solid Catalyst Synthesis as Heterogeneous Catalyst in The Esterification of Waste Cooking Oil and Bibliometric Analysis

“…Seeing that efficient and easy separation are the main features of heterogeneous catalysts, incorporating magnetic properties into biomass-derived solid catalysts is to be considered. It was found that the recovery rate of magnetic solid catalysts was 1.7-fold higher than non-magnetic solid catalysts (Abida et al, 2020;Li et al, 2020;Xie & Wan, 2018). Araujo et al (2021) successfully inserted the magnetic behaviour into acai seedderived carbon material using the impregnation process followed by carbonization and sulfonation, and red mud was used as the magnetic source.…”

Preparation and Characterization of Mesocarbon Microbeads by the Co-Polycondensation of High-Temperature Coal Tar Pitch and Coal Pyrolytic Extracts

“…Mesocarbon microbeads (MCMBs) are recognized as a kind of soft carbon with good sphericity, uniform particle size distribution, ease of graphitization, and other special properties [ 1 ]. MCMBs are accepted as a suitable precursor widely applied in a lithium-ion battery [ 1 , 2 ], lithium-ion supercapacitor [ 3 ], Li-S battery [ 4 ], sodium-ion battery [ 5 ], MCMB–SiC composite ceramic [ 6 ], solid acid catalyst [ 7 ], photocatalyst [ 8 ], and so on. In other words, MCMBs are one of the most important functional artificial carbon materials widely used in the metallurgy industry, chemical industry, aerospace industry, energy storage, and catalysis [ 9 ].…”