Journal Article

Zr-DBS with Sulfonic Group: A Green and Highly Efficient Catalyst for Alcoholysis of Furfuryl Alcohol to Ethyl Levulinate

Li, Yehui, Wang, Xiang, Hu, ·Aiyun, Wang, Haijun, Peng, Qingrui, Li, Xiaoning, Hui, Wei

2021

Overview

The alcoholysis of furfuryl alcohol (FA) produce ethyl levulinate (EL) plays a crucial role in the field of biomass conversion. In this work, a novel Zr-base catalyst with sulfonic groups in its structure was prepared by the co-precipitation of sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate and ZrOCl 2 (Zr-DBS) under non-toxic conditions. It was found that Zr-DBS has an excellent catalytic performance for this reaction and an EL yield of 95.27% could be achieved. Besides, Zr-DBS could be easily separated from the reaction system and reused at least four times without a significantly decrease in activity. Meanwhile, Zr-DBS was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), N 2 adsorption–desorption, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and Temperature-programmed desorption of ammonia (NH 3 -TPD). The main reason for the high catalytic activity of the Zr-DBS was that the synergetic effects of Lewis and Brønsted acid sites and appropriate textural properties. Graphic Abstract

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Alcohols / Ammonia / Benzene / Catalysis / Catalysts / Catalytic activity / Chemistry / Chemistry and Materials Science / Desorption / Electron microscopy / Fourier transforms / Furfuryl alcohol / Inductively coupled plasma / Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering / Infrared spectroscopy / Microscopy / Optical emission spectroscopy / Organometallic Chemistry / Physical Chemistry / Sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate / Spectrum analysis / Sulfonic acid / X ray powder diffraction / Zirconium