Highly Selective Conversion of Furfural to Furfural Alcohol or Levulinate Ester in One Pot over ZrO2@SBA-15 and Its Kinetic Behavior

Biorefinery for the purpose of producing biofuels, chemicals, and materials has received much attention. Furfural alcohol (FOL) and levulinate ester (LE) are important biomass-derived platform chemicals, and they are produced from sugar-based furfural (FAL). Unfortunately, the two products are often obtained separately in different reaction systems, which is undesirable; furthermore, it is of significant practical interest to control their selectivity so that the desired product can be accumulated in high yields. Herein, we present an efficient method for the highly selective conversion of FAL to FOL or isopropyl levulinate (IPL) in a one pot system using isopropanol as the hydrogen source and ZrO2@SBA-15 as a bifunctional catalyst with both Lewis acid and Brønsted acid sites. Under optimized reaction conditions, high yields of FOL and IPL in up to 90.4% and 87.2%, respectively, were obtained. Based on the experimental results, a kinetic model describing the catalytic conversion of FAL into FOL and IPL process has been established, which has a good correlation (R 2 > 0.92) between the measured and predicted data. The developed kinetics can provide an effective tool to monitor the process and tailor the process conditions to obtain the desired product.