Research articleOne-pot production of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural from cellulose using solid acid catalysts

- Two-step saccharification process of practical biomass, rice straw, was developed.
- The 1st step aimed to hydrolyze hemicellulose, 2nd step to hydrolyze cellulose.
- The effect of various solid acid catalysts and the reaction conditions were investigated.
- Total monosaccharide yield of 69.92% for rice straw was obtained.
- A hypothetical mechanism of two-step process using solid acid was proposed.

5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is one of the most important intermediate platforms for production of both chemicals and liquid fuel derived from biomass. The one-pot production of HMF from cellulose was conducted in a batch reactor in the presence of various solid acid catalysts. The prepared catalysts were characterized by means of Brunauer-Emmett-Teller measurement and pyridine adsorption FT-IR to investigate their pore structure and acidic properties. The presence of gaseous hydrogen enhanced the formation of HMF by suppressing the formation of byproducts. Increasing the acid amount of the catalyst caused an increase in the conversion and selectivity for organic acid and a decrease in the HMF selectivity. A Brønsted-type catalyst (Al-SBA-15) favored the formation of HMF. The reaction conditions of 220 °C, 5 min, and a hydrogen pressure of 1 MPa resulted in the highest yield of HMF, and selectivity of 26.9% was achieved when the Al-SBA-15 catalyst was used. Moreover, under the same conditions, cellulose extracted from eucalyptus, a practical biomass, was converted to HMF in a one-pot synthesis with a yield of 13.0 C-mol.%.

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