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Valorization of Biomass to Furfural by Chestnut Shell-based Solid Acid in Methyl Isobutyl Ketone–Water–Sodium Chloride System

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Abstract

Recently, highly efficient production of furfural from available, abundant, inexpensive, and renewable lignocellulosic biomass has gained much attention by using biomass-based heterogeneous catalyst in an effective biphasic system. Using microwave-treated chestnut shell (MC-CNS) as biobased support, biomass-based catalyst (MC-Sn-CNS) was firstly synthesized for catalyzing biomass into furfural. The structure parameters of MC-Sn-CNS were measured by BET, SEM, XRD, and FT-IR. After systematical optimization, furfural yield reached 64.4% from corncob by MC-Sn-CNS (3.6 wt%) at 180 °C for 15 min in methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK)–water (2:1, v:v) containing 200 mM NaCl. MC-Sn-CNS had high stability, which could be recycled for 7 batches. The yield of furfural from fresh corncob was 44.5–64.4%. The possible catalytic mechanism for synergistic catalysis of biomass to furfural by MC-Sn-CNS was expounded in MIBK–water–NaCl system. The results showed that green solvent (MIBK) and NaCl promoted the production of furfural from CC catalyzed by solid acid (MC-Sn-CNS). This study demonstrated an environmentally friendly strategy for efficiently utilizing corncob into furfural by CNS-based heterogeneous chemocatalyst in a green reaction media. Clearly, this newly synthesized biomass-based MC-Sn-CNS catalyst had potential application in the future.

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Data Availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.

Abbreviations

CNS:

Chestnut shells

CC:

Corncob

CPME:

Cyclopentyl methyl ether

DMSO:

Dimethyl sulfoxide

GVL:

γ-Valerolactone

THF:

Tetrahydrofuran

DBP:

Dibutyl phthalate

MIBK:

Methyl-isobutyl ketone

Me-THF:

2-Methyltetrahydrofuran

MC-CNS:

Microwave-treated CNS

MC-Sn-CNS:

Tin-based solid acid catalyst using microwave-treated CNS as carrier

CrI :

Crystallinity index

SSA:

Specific surface area

Y :

Furfural yield

XRD:

X-ray diffraction

SEM:

Scanning electron microscopy

FT-IR:

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

BET:

Brunauer–Emmett–Teller

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Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21978072), the Postgraduate Research & Practical Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (KYCX21-2867) and Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (No. 20KJB350003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Biomass Refining and High-Quality Utilization, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Catalytic Materials and Technology, School of Pharmacy, Changzhou University, Changzhou, China

    Jingjian Zha, Bo Fan, Jiarui He & Yu-Cai He

  2. State Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering, Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Green Transformation of Bio-resources, Hubei Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan, China

    Yu-Cai He & Cuiluan Ma

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  1. Jingjian Zha
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  2. Bo Fan
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  3. Jiarui He
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Contributions

Conceptualization and Methodology: J. Zha. Data analysis: B. Fan. Software: J. He. Writing original manuscript: J. Zha. Review and revising manuscript: Y. He. Funding acquisition: Y. He, B. Fan, C. Ma. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yu-Cai He or Cuiluan Ma.

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Jingjian Zha and Bo Fan contributed equally to this work.

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Zha, J., Fan, B., He, J. et al. Valorization of Biomass to Furfural by Chestnut Shell-based Solid Acid in Methyl Isobutyl Ketone–Water–Sodium Chloride System. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 194, 2021–2035 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-021-03733-3

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