Catalytic Production and Upgrading of Furfural: A Platform Compound

Abstract

Furfural is a renewable platform compound that can be derived from lignocellulosic biomass. The highly functionalized molecular structure of furfural enables us to prepare a variety of high value-added chemicals, which will help realize biomass high-value utilization, and alleviate energy and environmental problems. This paper reviews the research progress on furfural production and upgrading to C5 chemicals from the catalyst perspective. The emphasis is placed on summarizing and refining the catalytic mechanism and in-depth analysis of available data. Specifically, the reaction mechanism of furfural production and upgrading is summarized firstly from the perspective of reaction pathways and reaction kinetics. Then, the available data are further processed to evaluate the actual reaction efficiency of different catalytic systems from multiple dimensions. Finally, based on statistical analysis, the challenges and opportunities of furfural-based research are proposed.