Furfural Hydrogenation over Amorphous Alloy Catalysts Prepared by Different Reducing Agents

The catalytic hydrogenation of furfural was studied over a series of Ni-B, Co-B, and Ni-Co-B amorphous alloy catalysts that were prepared by the chemical reduction method using KBH4 and NaBH4 as reducing agents. These catalysts were characterized by N-2 adsorption/desorption, XRD, XPS, FE-SEM, and TEM. The results showed that NaBH4 had a much stronger reduction ability to enhance the surface concentration of the metallic active sites for furfural hydrogenation and electron transfer capability, leading to much higher hydrogenation activity. In the Ni-Co-B amorphous alloy catalyst, the equilibrium between the isolated Ni-B/Co-B active sites and the combined Ni-Co-B active sites was important in regulating furfural conversion and products distribution.