A facile way for sugar transformation catalyzed by carbon-based Lewis-Bronsted solid acid

In this work, catalytic transformation of sugar into 2-Formyl-5-ethoxymethylfuran (EMF) was studied using Zn-trapped sulfonated carbon (SO3H-Zn-SC) catalyst. The catalyst was easily prepared via impregnation-pyrolysis and sulfonation. The physical and chemical properties of as-prepared catalyst were tested and discussed in details. For upgrading experiment, EMF synthesis from glucose transformation via isomerization, dehydration and etherification processes was performed using ultrasonic system. The increasing of ultrasonic power and ultrasonic duty cycle promoted the formation of EMF product, providing a maximum EMF yield of 97.8%. The ultrasonic application promoted the selectivity for EMF formation at shorter-faster reaction rate. Moreover, SO3H-Zn-SC also exhibited good reusability with low amount of acid leaching in each cycle. This research provided alternative way for improving the yield of EMF at short reaction time.