Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.56, No.14, 3866-3872, 2017
Nanoporous Cu-Al-Co Alloys for Selective Furfural Hydrodeoxygenation to 2-Methylfuran
By finding new catalysts for selective and efficient conversion of biomass-derived products to industrially relevant chemicals and fuels, a transition from fossil fuel feedstocks may be achieved. Furfural (C5H4O2) is a platform chemical which may be converted to multiple heterocyclic and ring-opening products, but to date there have been few catalysts which enable selective hydrodeoxygenation to 2-methylfuran (2-MF, C5H6O). In this work, we present a self supported nanoporous Cu-Al-Co ternary alloy catalyst with high furfural HDO activity toward 2-MF, achieving up to 66.0% selectivity and 98.2% overall conversion at 513 K with only a similar to 5 atomic % Co composition. Further analysis over multiple temperature conditions and nominal Co concentrations was performed to examine optimal conditions and tune catalyst performance, and operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy experiments were conducted to elucidate the structure of the catalyst in the reaction environment.