Performance and characterization of rhenium-modified Rh-Ir alloy catalyst for one-pot conversion of furfural into 1,5-pentanediol

One-pot selective conversion of highly concentrated furfural to 1,5-pentanediol (1,5-PeD) was carried out over Rh-added Ir-ReOx/SiO2 catalysts through two-step reaction temperatures. Over the optimized catalyst, Rh(0.66 wt%)-Ir-ReOx/SiO2, the maximum yield of 1,5-PeD was 71.1% from highly concentrated furfural (50 wt%) and 78.2% from diluted furfural (10 wt%). These values were higher than those obtained with Ir-ReOx/SiO2 or Pd-Ir-ReOx/SiO2 catalysts. Rh-Ir-ReOx/SiO2 showed much higher activity in the hydrogenation of furfural to tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol intermediate in the low temperature step than Ir-ReOx/SiO2, although the hydrogenation activity was lower than that of Pd-Ir-ReOx/SiO2. A long reaction time in the low temperature step is necessary to obtain a good 1,5-PeD yield over Rh-Ir-ReOx/SiO2 in two-step reaction of furfural. The hydrogenolysis activity of Rh-Ir-ReOx/SiO2 for tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol to 1,5-PeD in the high temperature step was higher than that of Pd-Ir-ReOx/SiO2 and was comparable to that of Ir-ReOx/SiO2. The characterization results of TPR, XRD, XANES, EXAFS, STEM-EDX and FT-IR of adsorbed CO indicated that Rh-Ir-ReOx/SiO2 catalysts showed the structure of Ir-Rh alloy particles partially covered with ReOx species. The hydrogenation activity of Rh-Ir-ReOx/SiO2 for the furan ring was higher than those of the mixture of Rh-Ir/SiO2 and Ir-ReOx/SiO2 or the mixture of Rh-ReOx/SiO2 and Ir-ReOx/SiO2. Both Ir-Rh alloy formation and ReOx modification of alloy particles are essential for the high hydrogenation activity.