Tunable Catalytic Reduction of Furfural with Formic Acid and Sodium Formate Into Furan and Tetrahydrofuran Derivatives

Abstract

Furfural is an attractive bio‐based platform chemical that has many derivatives of commercial interest. Herein, we show that the selectivity of the direct furfural reduction can be steered from 2‐methylfuran and 2‐methyltetrahydrofuran to furfuryl alcohol and tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol by varying the ratio of formic acid and sodium formate. These reagents take the role of terminal reductants in the disclosed heterogeneous Pd‐catalysed process. We report the development and optimisation of the reaction conditions for three different products directly from furfural: 2‐methyltetrahydrofuran, tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol and 2‐methylfuran which were obtained in 59%, 46%, and 63% selectivity, respectively. Furthermore, the protocol uses commercially available Pd/Al2O3 as catalyst and the formic acid and sodium formate can be obtained from biogenous sources.