Conversion of Xylose to Furfuryl Alcohol and 2-Methylfuran in a Continuous Fixed-Bed Reactor

Abstract

An efficient process was designed for the synthesis of furfuryl alcohol and 2-methylfuran from xylose using a continuous fixed-bed reactor over a catalyst combining Hβ zeolite and Cu/ZnO/Al2 O3 in γ-butyrolactone (GBL)/water as solvent. The cooperative effect of Hβ zeolite and GBL facilitated the dehydration of xylose and enhanced largely the furfural yield. The production of furfuryl alcohol and 2-methylfuran can be simply tuned by changing the hydrogenation temperature for furfural over the Cu/ZnO/Al2 O3 catalyst. The yield for furfuryl alcohol reached 87.2 % at 150 °C whereas a yield of 86.8 % was achieved for 2-methylfuran at 190 °C.

Keywords: fixed-bed reactor; furfural; heterogeneous catalysis; xylose; γ-butyrolactone.