Catalytic Transfer Hydrogenation of Biomass-Derived Furfural to Furfuryl Alcohol over in-situ Prepared Nano Cu-Pd/C using Formic Acid as Hydrogen Source
Catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) of bio-derived furfural (FF) to furfuryl alcohol (FFA) was performed using the physically mixed CuO-Pd/C as catalyst and formic acid (FA) as hydrogen donor. The evolution investigation of Cu showed the precursor CuO was firstly dissolved into Cu2+ by FA formed coordination polymer-copper(II), which uniformly dispersed in reaction solution of 1, 4-dioxane. And then the Cu2+ was in-situ reduced and Cu-Pd alloys formed simultaneously. The in-situ prepared nano Cu-Pd/C catalyst exhibited the best performance with the complete FF conversion and 98.1% FFA selectivity. Reaction conditions test suggested that the FFA selectivity was greatly dependent on the Cu content. The underlying mechanism revealed that the Pd mainly enhanced the FA decomposition to produce hydrogen, and the nano Cu for the increase of FFA selectivity; the Cu-Pd alloys functioned in synergistic reaction. Leaching and recycling tests demonstrated an excellent stability of the catalyst.