Fabrication of Zirconium-Doped Activated Carbon by Chemical Activation for Catalytic Transfer Hydrogenation of 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural into 2,5-Dihydroxymethylfuran

Abstract

5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) has received much attention as a bridgehead to connect biomass with furan ring chemicals. Its hydrogenation product, 2,5-dihydroxymethylfuran (DHMF), is one of the most important biomass-derived platform chemicals. However, the preparation of high-efficiency catalysts with low cost for the selective hydrogenation of HMF into DHMF is always needed. In this article, we prepared a zirconium-doped activated carbon by chemical activation. Systematic characterizations revealed that the high activity of zirconiumdoped activated carbon for catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) of HMF into DHMF was provided by the cooperative effect between Lewis acid and Lewis base sites due to its extremely high specific surface area. The conversion of HMF and the yield of DHMF are 97.5 and 96.3% at 130 °C for 2 h, respectively. The catalyst still maintained high catalytic activity after simple recalcination treatment at 550 °C for 2 h in nitrogen atmosphere. Based on the experimental results, a kinetic model describing the catalytic conversion of HMF into DHMF has been established, which has a good correlation (R 2 > 0.93) between the measured and predicted data. The developed kinetics can provide an effective tool to monitor the process and tailor the process conditions to obtain the desired product.