Metal-organic frameworks derived bimetallic Cu-Co catalyst for efficient and selective hydrogenation of biomass-derived furfural to furfuryl alcohol

In this study we report an efficient CuCo bimetallic catalyst with highly dispersed CuCo-based mixed metal/metal oxide on porous carbon matrix for the hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol. The catalyst is derived from Co-doped Cu-BTC metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) by thermolysis in nitrogen atmosphere at temperatures ranging from 773 K to 1073 K. The best catalytic performance is achieved when cobalt to copper molar ratio is 0.4 and the precursor is calcined at 873 K. The characterization of prepared catalytic materials is done by multi-techniques including XRD, XPD, SEM, TEM, TG and BET analysis. The sum of their results reveal that the doping of cobalt helps the dispersion of nanoparticles of copper and cobalt and thermolysis temperature has an impact on both the particle size and the chemical states. The resulting catalyst CuCo0.4/C-873 shows 98.7% furfural conversion and 97.7% furfuryl alcohol selectivity in ethanol solvent with good stability which is better than most reported catalysts. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.