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Selective Production of 2‐Methylfuran by Gas‐Phase Hydrogenation of Furfural on Copper Incorporated by Complexation in Mesoporous Silica Catalysts
Author(s) -
JiménezGómez Carmen Pilar,
Cecilia Juan A.,
MorenoTost Ramón,
MairelesTorres Pedro
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
chemsuschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.412
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1864-564X
pISSN - 1864-5631
DOI - 10.1002/cssc.201700086
Subject(s) - copper , furfural , catalysis , yield (engineering) , sintering , mesoporous material , chemistry , mesoporous silica , inorganic chemistry , chemical engineering , nuclear chemistry , materials science , organic chemistry , metallurgy , engineering
Copper species have been incorporated in mesoporous silica (MS) through complexation with the amine groups of dodecylamine, which was used as a structure‐directing agent in the synthesis. A series of Cu/SiO 2 catalysts ( x Cu‐MS) with copper loadings ( x ) from 2.5 to 20 wt % was synthesized and evaluated in the gas‐phase hydrogenation of furfural (FUR). The most suitable catalytic performance in terms of 2‐methylfuran yield was obtained with an intermediate copper content (10 wt %). This 10Cu‐MS catalyst exhibits a 2‐methylfuran yield higher than 95 mol % after 5 h time‐on‐stream (TOS) at a reaction temperature of 210 °C with a H 2 /FUR molar ratio of 11.5 and a weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) of 1.5 h −1 . After 14 h TOS, this catalyst still showed a yield of 80 mol %. In all cases, carbonaceous deposits on the external surface were the cause of the catalyst deactivation, although sintering of the copper particles was observed for higher copper loadings. This intermediate copper loading (10 wt %) offered a suitable balance between resistance to sintering and tendency to form carbonaceous deposits.