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

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.