Kinetics of high temperature conversion of furfuryl alcohol in water

The kinetics of furfuryl alcohol conversion to 4-hydroxycyclopent-2-enone (4-HCP), polymers and levulinic acid (LA) in water was investigated in batch reactors at temperatures 110–200 °C. These acid catalyzed reactions are at high temperatures catalyzed by hydrogen ions formed by autodissociation of water. At temperatures 180–200 °C and reaction times 5–10 min more than 50 mol% yields of 4-HCP were achieved. A kinetic model which describes experimental data was developed. The values of the apparent activation energies of the main reaction and the side reactions are very similar, what means that the selectivity of 4-HCP formation is independent on the temperature. It indicates, that is attractive to perform furfuryl alcohol transformation to 4-HCP at high temperatures without changing the selectivity.