Quercetin-Zirconium: A Green and Highly Efficient Catalyst for the Meerwein–Ponndorf–Verley Reduction of Furfural

The utilization of renewable raw materials to synthesize functional solid catalytic materials is a very attractive topic. Herein, an amorphous Quercetin-Zr catalyst was synthesized by using quercetin and ZrCl 4 as raw materials. Quercetin-Zr had excellent catalytic transfer hydrogenation activity and can efficiently convert furfural to furfuryl alcohol and obtain a 97.9% yield of furfuryl alcohol after 1.5 h at 120 °C. Systematic characterization established the existence of a large amount of Lewis acid–base couple sites (Zr 4+ –O 2− –) in quercetin-Zr, which maximized furfuryl alcohol production through acid–base synergistic catalysis. Graphical Abstract