Hydrogenolysis of Biomass-Derived 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural to Produce 2,5-Dimethylfuran Over Ru-ZrO2-MCM-41 Catalyst

In this work, an effective catalytic route for the selective hydrogenolysis of renewable biomass-derived 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to high quality bio-fuel 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) was reported using Ru supported on ZrO2-MCM-41. The synthesized Ru supported on ZrO2-MCM-41 catalyst was characterized by different techniques such as XRD, BET surface area, XPS, SEM, TEM, EDX, TGA and TPD. Reaction parameters, like time, metal loading on ZrO2-MCM-41, catalyst loading, temperature, H-2 pressure and solvent, were optimized for the conversion of HMF to DMF using prepared catalyst. The investigation performed in this study shows that Ru supported on ZrO2-MCM-41 is highly active and selective catalyst for effective transformation of the HMF into DMF in high yield and selectivity. With the use of 2 wt % Ru-ZrO2-MCM-41 catalyst, 90% yield of DMF was obtained from HMF with very short reaction time of 1 h. The catalyst was recycled upto six time with slight decrease in yield after 4(th) cycle. A direct conversion of Fructose to DMF was also achieved in 53% yield using Amberlyst-15 and 2%Ru-ZrO2-MCM-41 combined catalyst in n-butanol.