SiO2Al2O3: An Efficient, Stable and Reusable Catalyst for Furfural Production from Xylose

MICHAEL N. VANOY-VILLAMIL; CARLOS APESTEGUIA; C.L. PADRÓ

Pittsburgh

Congreso; 24 North American Meeting of the Catalysis Society; 2015

North American Catalysis Society

Worldwide agricultural activity produces high volume of waste, which become an interestingrenewable resource for valuable chemicals production. Hemicellulose, amorphous polymerwhose main component is D-xylose, corresponds to 25-40% w/w of agricultural waste.Furfural, which is intermediary in the production of valuable products such as furfuryl alcoholand furoic acid and its esters, can be obtained by triple dehydration of D-xylose. Currently,furfural is produced by treatment of rich in pentosans agricultural waste with sulfuric acid witha maximum yield of 50%. Toxic waste generation and corrosion are the main drawbacks ofprocess using homogeneous catalysis. The replacement by an environmental friendly processusing solid acids such as zeolites, γ-Al2O3, Zr-(W, Al) mixed oxides and resins, among othershas been studied. The dehydration of xylose to furfural is accompanied by undesirableside reactions like condensation or ?resinification? of furfural that form humins (Scheme 1)besides xylose isomerization to xylulose andsubsequent dehydration to furfural. . In this work, wehave analyzed the influence of operating conditionswith the aim to optimize furfural production usingSiO2Al2O3 as catalyst. Moreover, further studies aboutstability of catalysts in reaction conditions are neededin order to develop a commercial process. Therefore,we have studied the stability of this catalyst byperforming successive catalytic runs.