New eco-friendly catalysts for efficient hydrogenation of furfural and levulinic acid to biofuels
30 July 2013
Researchers at Lakehead University in Canada have synthesized a series of chromium-free and noble-metal-free Cu–Fe catalysts utilizing inexpensive metal nitrates. The Cu–Fe catalysts exhibited highly efficient performance in the hydrogenation of biomass-derived furfural and levulinic acid, where biofuels—2-methylfuran and γ-valerolactone (GVL) were obtained at 51% and 90% yield under mild conditions, with 99% and 98.7% conversion, respectively. They report on their work in a paper in the journal Fuel.
Both 2-methylfuran (earlier post) and GVL (earlier post) have been identified as promising biofuels or intermediates to fuels.
The Cu–Fe catalyst developed in this work is inexpensive, simple, and amenable to scale up, which makes it a promising candidate for the general conversion of biomass-derived monomers to biofuels.
—Yan and Chen
Resources
Kai Yan, Aicheng Chen (2013) Selective hydrogenation of furfural and levulinic acid to biofuels on the ecofriendly Cu–Fe catalyst. Fuel doi: 10.1016/j.fuel.2013.06.042
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