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Selective catalytic transformation of cellulose into bio-based cresol with CuCr2O4@MCM-41 catalyst

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Abstract

This work aims to demonstrate that cresol, an important high added value chemical in petrochemical industry, can be directionally produced using cellulose. This novel controllable transformation process was achieved by selective catalytic pyrolysis of cellulose and catalytic oxidation. The zinc oxide-doped strong acidic zeolite catalyst promoted the formation of toluene intermediate in the catalytic pyrolysis of cellulose. The CuCr2O4@MCM-41 catalyst exhibited high activity and good reusability in the catalytic oxidation process. The highest cresol selectivity of 87.5% with conversion of 83.0% was obtained using the CuCr2O4@MCM-41 catalyst and hydrogen peroxide as a green oxidant under the optimized reaction conditions (60 °C, 4 h). Based on the study of the model compounds and catalyst characterizations, the reaction pathways and possible reaction mechanism for the catalytic transformation of cellulose to bio-based cresol have been proposed.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (21978280) and National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFB1501404).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Physics, Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Anhui Key Laboratory of Biomass Clean Energy, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, People’s Republic of China

    Yuehui Luo, Lijuan Zhu, Yuting He, Mingyu Yang, Yanhua Zhang, Minghui Fan & Quanxin Li

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  1. Yuehui Luo
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  2. Lijuan Zhu
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  3. Yuting He
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  4. Mingyu Yang
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  7. Quanxin Li
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Correspondence to Quanxin Li.

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Luo, Y., Zhu, L., He, Y. et al. Selective catalytic transformation of cellulose into bio-based cresol with CuCr2O4@MCM-41 catalyst. Cellulose 29, 303–319 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-021-04285-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-021-04285-9

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