Aqueous-phase catalytic hydrogenation of furfural over Ni-bearing hierarchical Y zeolite catalysts synthesized by a facile route

A series of nickel-based catalysts with the hierarchical Y zeolite, which directly synthesized using sodium alginate (SA) as the template, as support were synthesized and evaluated on the aqueous-phase hydrogenation of furfural (FFR). Effects of reaction time (RTE), reaction temperature (RTP), hydrogen pressure (HP) and catalyst amount (CA) on the conversion of FFR as well as the yield of cyclopentanone (CPON) were investigated systematically. The results indicated that the hierarchical Y zeolite catalysts exhibited evidently high catalytic activity on hydrogenation of FFR toward CPON. The highest FFR conversion was up to 96.5% with a CPON yield up to 86.5%. The synthesized hierarchical Y zeolite had high crystallinity, big BET surface area (BETSA), abundant mesopores volume and appropriate acidity. The structural and textural properties of the hierarchical Y zeolite could be controlled by the amount of template SA.