Highly‐efficient and low‐cost synthesis of 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural from monosaccharides catalyzed by surface treated biomass

Abstract

Low‐cost bagasse and microcrystalline cellulose were used as the raw materials to prepare solid acid catalysts via incomplete carbonization and sulphonation. The solid acid synthesized from microcrystalline cellulose (C‐SO3H) exhibited better catalytic performance than that synthesized from bagasse. C‐SO3H was characterized by various techniques to study the reaction conditions of the catalytic transformation from glucose and fructose to 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural (5‐HMF). The conversion of glucose was 73.29 ± 0.74 %, and the conversion of fructose reached a maximum of 98.85 ± 0.01 %. The selectivity and yield of 5‐HMF reached maxima of 65.04 ± 0.28 % and 64.29 ± 0.27 %, respectively. Using C‐SO3H as the catalyst, the conversion of glucose followed second‐order kinetics at various temperatures, while the conversion of fructose followed first‐order kinetics. The activation energies of the glucose and fructose transformations were 73.75 and 51.87 kJ · mol−1, respectively.

Catalytic conversion of glucose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural over biomass-based activated carbon catalyst

“…Both studies generated good HMF yields, -55.6% and 42.3%, respectively-using water as a conversion solvent. In addition, other studies have used glucose as a feedstock: Zou et al used bagassebased activated carbon and sulfonated it with sulfuric acid, while Villanueva et al used carboxylated activated carbon [39,40]. However, both studies produced low HMF yields: 10%, at 130 °C in 8 hours; and < 5%, at 125 °C in 3 hours, respectively.…”