Valorization of a platform chemicals issued from sugars hydrogenation reactions over supported metal catalysts on functionalized carbon materials

Abstract

The diminishing reserves of fossil resources calls for the exploration of alternative and sustainable feedstocks. Due to its abundance, renewable nature and neutral relation to global warming, conversion of biomass for the production of fuels and chemicals has emerged as an important area of research. Hexoses represent the majority of carbohydrates which are most abundant monosaccharides found in nature, and a fundamental resource to bio chemicals. Synthesis of HMF through dehydration of hexoses is extensively studied due to importance of HMF as a platform chemical. In fact, HMF is one of the top ten value-added bio-based chemicals listed by the US Department of Energy. The main objective of this work is the catalytic design based on functionalized carbon, for producing two prominent bio-based chemicals, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and levulinic acid (LA) from glucose. Further, using HMF-derived levulinic acid as starting materials for the production of value added molecules by hydrodeoxygenation reaction, are also investigated by noble metal supported on activated carbon. The results reveals a superior activity of Ca-containing samples, the bifunctional catalysts pTSA-Ca/AC reveals as efficient and stable system maintaining HMF yield during 5 cycles of catalyst reuse. For levulinic acid LA synthesis, an important result of LA yield was obtained using catalyst based on AC-pTSA prometed by calcium chloride. Also, excellent results of valorization HMF-derived levulinic acid to γ-valerolactone (GVL), are obtained.