Simultaneous dehydration of biomass-derived sugars to 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) and reduction of graphene oxide in ethyl lactate: one pot dual chemistry

Low yield of chemicals is often identified as a major obstacle for the complete utilization of bioresources as a source of important chemicals and thereby limits their application in industries. The issue of low yield can be partially compensated by integrated processes, i.e. , production of two or more chemicals from the same biomass using single or multistep processes. Herein, a simple pathway for simultaneous production of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) from biomass-derived sugars by dehydration of fructose (molar yield 76.3%) using graphene oxide (GO) as acid catalyst and choline chloride (ChoCl) as additive in ethyl lactate is demonstrated. Moreover, during the course of reaction GO was reduced to produce six-layered graphene nanosheets (96% recovery). Furthermore, the solvent was recycled after recovery of both products and successfully reused for subsequent production of the two chemicals with high purity.