Novel solid acid catalyst for the production of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural with fructose dehydration.

Background: 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) is a high value-added platform compound which can be obtained by dehydration of hexose under acidic conditions.

Objective: In this paper, a novel impregnation strategy for the molecular sieves (ZSM-5) as carrier and phosphotungstic acid (TPA) as active ingredient is proposed, the influence of the fructose dehydration process were studied and eco-friendliness, low-cost 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) was successfully obtained.

Method: The structure surface area, pore size, acidity and microstructure of solid acid catalysts were investigated by XRD, BET, NH3-TPD and SEM. The influences of reaction temperature, reaction time, catalyst dosage on the yield of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HFM) were investigated.

Results: The results showed that TPA/ZSM-5 (mass ratio 20:10) has good dispersion and catalytic activity, fructose dosage 5 g, reaction temperature 140 °C, reaction time 2 h, catalyst dosage 0.5 g, and the yield of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural was 80.75% and after five times use the yield of 5-HMF remained above 75%.

Conclusion: The novel solid acid TPA/ZSM-5 catalyst exhibited good catalytic activity and stability for the fructose dehydration to produce 5-HMF.