Furfural was directly transformed to prepare 1, 4-pentanediol

Furfural was directly transformed to prepare 1, 4-pentanediol

As an important part of the biomass industry (such as bioplastics, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, etc.), the synthesis technology of biodiol has become the focus of researchers at home and abroad. Converting a wide range of low-cost raw materials (biomass and its derivatives) into high value-added chemical raw materials can not only reduce the dependence on fossil resources, but also meet the "green" standard of environmental production. Recently, Fei Liu and Tao Zhang of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Francois Jerome of the University of Poitiers in France, have used the strategy of acid catalysis and hydrogenation in a pot to automatically and orderly series reaction. Furfural was selectively converted to 1, 4-pentanediol in the presence of Ru/CMK-3.

One of the highlights of this work is that the four-step reaction process was successfully carried out in a single reactor by using CO2/H2O as a combined catalyst for protic acid and hydrogenation. Moderate reaction temperature (80 ℃) and hydrogenation environment can effectively avoid the occurrence of other reaction paths (excessive hydrogenation, dehydration and cyclization of diol, etc.), and the highest yield of 1, 4-pentanediol can reach 90%.

On this basis, combined with the capture and identification of intermediate species, the possible catalytic conversion path of furfural to 1, 4-pentanediol under this catalytic system was proposed: furfural was hydrogenated selectively to furfuryl alcohol; Furfuryl alcohol is then ring-opened in the presence of an acid catalyst to form a pentadienyl intermediate (similar to the ring-opening process in Piancatelli rearrangement reaction catalyzed by acid). Finally, the pentadienyl intermediate is hydrogenated to 3-acetylpropanol, and the target product, 1, 4-pentanediol, is further hydrogenated.

The results were recently published in Green Chemsitry. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Strategic Priority Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Collaborative Innovation Center for Energy and Materials Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology of Liaoning Province, and the Beijing Light Source and Japan Light Source.

The author of the paper is：Fei Liu, Qiaoyun Liu, Jinming Xu, Lei Li, Yi-Tao Cui, Rui Lang, Lin Li, Yang Su, Shu Miao, Hui Sun, Botao Qiao, Aiqin Wang, Francois Jerome and Tao Zhang