Highly efficient catalytic transfer hydrogenation of biomass-derived furfural to furfuryl alcohol using UiO-66 without metal catalysts

This paper provides a promising strategy for the high yield production of FAL from the CTH of FF with UiO-66. [Display omitted] •97 % of FAL yield was obtained from the CTH of FF on UiO-66 in the IPA system.•Lewis-acid and structural properties of MOFs are essential to the high yield of FAL.•UiO-66 shows good recyclability and easy regeneration for producing FAL from FF.•UiO-66 has a universal activity in the CTH of different aldehydes to alcohols in IPA.•This CTH system open a promising route for yielding FAL from FF in large-scale. In this paper, the as-prepared metal-organic frameworks material UiO-66 and other Zr-MOFs were directly used as catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) catalysts to catalyze furfural (FF) to furfuryl alcohol (FAL) with 2-propanol (IPA) acted as both solvent and hydrogen donor. The results showed that the as-prepared UiO-66 had satisfactory catalytic activity and selectivity in yielding FAL (97 %) from the CTH of FF at 140 °C within 5 h. Moreover, the as-prepared UiO-66 exhibited relatively stable catalytic activity over five cycles and easy regeneration. Interestingly, UiO-66 was also applicable for the CTH of the other aldehydes such as 5-hydroxymethyfurfural, 5-methylfurfural, 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, and n-hexanal to the corresponding alcohols, affording high product yields up to 98 %. This work provides a green, simple and sustainable process for the catalytic production of FAL from biomass-based furfural, which has certain significance for the sustainable utilization of biomass.