5‐(Chloromethyl)furfural production from glucose: A pioneer kinetic model development exploring the mechanism

Conversion of glucose to 5‐(chloromethyl)furfural (CMF) is one of the well‐known high yield unit processes in lignocellulosic biomass valorization. A kinetic modeling study was not reported for the reaction, owing to the complexity in quantification of CMF. Herein we have successfully developed a rapid, sensitive, and specific HPLC method (reverse phase) to quantify the generated CMF (range: 10–650 μg/mL) in a dichloroethane solvent. The Box–Behnken design of experiment method employed for the statistical optimization. A kinetic model was developed based on the homogeneous first‐order kinetic model, and the results are in good agreement with the experiment data. The formation of CMF, 5‐(hydroxymethyl)furfural, formic acid, levulinic acid, and humins from glucose and HCl were modeled using a serial parallel reaction mechanism. The apparent activation energy (Ea) for glucose decomposition and CMF formation is 99 and 31 kJ/mol.