Catalytic conversion of agricultural waste biomass into valued chemical using bifunctional heterogeneous catalyst: A sustainable approach

This work reports synthesis of an efficient MoO3/ZnCo2O4@CeO2, bifunctional heterogeneous catalyst for profitable conversion of corncob biomass into Levulinic acid. The physiochemical properties of the catalyst were studied by TG-DTA, BET, XRD, FESEM/SEM, EDX-Mapping and TPD to correlate them with the catalytic activity. The results exposed that the synthesized catalyst showed improved catalytic performance, providing Levulinic acid yield of 70.1% under 8 wt% catalyst loading at 200 ? temperature for 220 min. Moreover, the catalyst presented sufficient reusability and recycled for at least 3 times for Levulinic acid production from the biomass without any loss in the catalytic activity.

Automated summary

This study reports the synthesis of an efficient MoO3/ZnCo2O4@CeO2 heterogeneous catalyst for the profitable conversion of corncob biomass into Levulinic acid. The physiochemical properties of the catalyst were studied and correlated with its catalytic activity. The synthesized catalyst showed improved catalytic performance, providing a high yield of Levulinic acid under low catalyst loading and maintained its catalytic activity after multiple cycles of use.