Liquid Phase Furfural Hydrotreatment to 2-Methylfuran with Carbon Supported Copper, Nickel, and Iron Catalysts

Salla K. Jaatinen*, Reetta S. Karinen, Juha S. Lehtonen

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    32 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    In this study inexpensive, non-toxic, and noble metal free mono- and bimetallic catalysts on activated carbon were tested in liquid phase catalytic furfural hydrotreatment to a potential biofuel component 2-methylfuran. High yields of 2-methylfuran were achieved in the study, the highest yield was achieved with 10 wt-% Ni/C (48.9%) in 120 minutes and good results were obtained also with bimetallic 2/2 wt-% CuNi/C and CuFe/C (yield 44.2 and 41.0%, respectively). These high yields were achieved applying significantly shorter reaction time (60 – 120 min) compared to many published studies. The activity of nickel catalysts was very high resulting eventually in further hydrogenation of 2-methylfuran. With increasing nickel loading also ring-opening and decarbonylation reactions were promoted. Addition of iron to nickel was beneficial for decreasing decarbonylation and other side reactions. Copper/nickel and copper/iron combinations were observed to have beneficial interaction as activity and selectivity to MF increased significantly.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)51-60
    JournalChemistrySelect
    Volume2
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 10 Jan 2017
    MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

    Funding

    This study was financially supported by the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation (TEKES, grant number 2653/31/2013). Project funded is concerning Novel Catalysts for Biomass Conversion (CatBio). We would also like to give special compliments to Heidi Meriö-Talvio and Tiia Viinikainen for the help with analytical devices and to Sara Castellazzi for experimental help. For TEM results this work made use of the Aalto University Nanomicroscopy Center (Aalto-NMC) premises.

    Keywords

    • 2-methyfuran
    • Biofuel
    • carbon
    • furfural
    • hydrotreatment

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