Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2013, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (5): 871-875.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(12)60551-8

• Communications • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Activated carbon-supported ruthenium as an efficient catalyst for selective aerobic oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural to 2,5-diformylfuran

NIE Junfang, XIE Jiahan, LIU Haichao   

  1. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Stable and Unstable Species, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  • Received:2013-01-06 Revised:2013-05-20 Online:2013-05-06 Published:2013-05-06
  • Supported by:

    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20825310, 20973011, and 21173008) and the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, 2011CB808700 and 2011CB201400).

Abstract:

The aerobic oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to 2,5-diformylfuran (DFF) was per-formed on an activated carbon-supported ruthenium (Ru/C) catalyst. The excellent DFF yield of 95.8% was achieved at 383 K and O2 pressure 2.0 MPa in toluene. It exhibited superior activity and DFF selectivity than other C-supported noble metals (i.e. Pt, Rh, Pd, and Au) with comparable nanoparticle size. The Ru/C catalyst was stable and can be recycled by a simple hydrothermal treatment. Moreover, the product distribution in the HMF oxidation on Ru/C can be tuned by the use of water as solvent and the addition of hydrotalcite, giving either 5-formyl-2-furancarboxylic acid or 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid as the dominant product.

Key words: Biomass, 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural, 2,5-Diformylfuran, Aerobic oxidation, Ruthenium catalyst