Global scientific community has turned its attention for production of biofuels, and very intense research is pursued in this direction last decade. Biofuels gained huge cynosure as this energy is renewable and sustainable unlike fossil fuels which has limited abundance and environmentally benign. Diesel and jet-fuel are the two types, which are in most demand. These fuels can be produced when we have abundant furans available in the form of alkylated furans such as methyl furans or furfurals.  Methyl furans and furfurals can be converted to jet or diesel fuels through reactions such as hydroxyalkylation, alkylation or aldol condensation followed by hydrolysis and hydrodeoxygenation.  Thus furans serve as synthetic precursors for jet and diesel fuels. Conventionally, furans are produced from biomass using solid acid catalysts through a biphasic batch reactor. For the first time, we report selective production of furans from biomass via gas-phase using molybdenum incorporated three dimensionally pore structured (KIT-5) mesoporous silica as heterogeneous catalyst. Four catalysts with different molybdenum loadings with high surface area and lare pore diameters were synthesized. These catalysts were highly effective in selective production of furans from biomass. The life of catalyst was found to be dependent on amount of molybdenum loading towards production of furans.

Synthesis and characterization of molybdenum incorporated mesoporous silica catalyst for biofuels

247th National Meeting (2014)

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