Efficient and selective production of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) from glucose was achieved in the presence of zirconium phosphate (ZrPO) catalyst in a biphasic system. With the use of this catalyst, a high HMF yield of 56.8% was obtained from glucose in a water-tetrahydrofuran (THF) biphasic system. Characterization results showed that such catalyst had weak to strong acid sites and contained both Lewis and Brønsted acid sites. The results of comparative experiments over some other solid acid catalysts demonstrated that the Lewis acid sites on the ZrPO catalyst played a crucial role in the isomerization of glucose to fructose and the Brønsted ones were active in the dehydration of generated fructose to HMF. Moreover, less levulinic acid (LA) and formic acid (FA) (0.5%) were detected in the reaction solution, indicating that this ZrPO catalyst exhibited high selectivity towards the formation of HMF. Furthermore, the ZrPO catalyst was very stable and could maintain its activity after being used for six times.

Conversion of glucose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural over zirconium phosphate catalyst

255th National Meeting (2018)

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