In pursuit of sustainability, scientists and engineers have been committed in the last few decades to replace fossil resources by renewable feedstock’s (e.g., biomass) for the production of energy and materials. A relevant example is the acid-catalyzed conversion of hemicellulose sugars (ca. 30 wt% of non-edible biomass) into furfural, an important chemical building block for the synthesis of plastics, solvents and pharmaceutical products. Currently, this conversion is realized in aqueous solutions of hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, and thus suffers from problems like reactor corrosion and fouling caused by severe product degradation into humins under acidic conditions. Further, the use of homogeneous catalysts presents additional stress on the downstream processing. On the other hand, replacing the mineral acids by solid acid catalysts can potentially overcome problems of corrosion and downstream catalyst recyclability. However, as long as humin formation remains unresolved, the use of solid catalysts for this conversion will not be feasible.<br/>In this work, we propose the synthesis of furfural in an extractive media using solid acid foams in a continuous flow reactor. These acid foam combine high catalytic activity with a large surface area, which is essential for the in-situ extraction furfural into an organic solvent where it does not degrade into humins. A fine balance between activity and extraction capacity is key to increase furfural productivity and suppress humin formation, thus making these structures excellent catalysts for the continuous production of furfural.<br/>

Solid acid foams for continuous dehydration of xylose to furfural in a biphasic extractive media

2019 Fall National Meeting

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