Short channeled Ni-Co/SBA-15 catalysts for highly selective hydrogenation of biomass-derived furfural to tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol

Liquid phase and one-step reaction for furfural (FFR) hydrogenated to tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (THFA) was conducted by employing noble metal-absence and toxicity-free, bimetallic Ni-Co catalysts. The bimetallic Ni-Co catalysts with different molar ratio of Ni to Co and two monometallic catalysts (Ni, Co) were synthesized by conventional incipient-wetness impregnation method with short channeled SBA-15 as support. Among these catalysts, highly selective hydrogenation of FFR to THFA was attained over Ni-Co/SBA-15 catalysts. The impact of molar ratio of Ni/Co was studied with a fixed Ni loading (10 wt %) in bare support. The samples were characterized by N-2 sorption, XRD, XPS, H-2-TPR, SEM, TEM and CO chemisorpdon. The results confirmed that the reducibility of Ni-catalysts can be improved by incorporating Co metal and revealed that appropriate amount of spinel NiCo2O4 oxides is favorable to uniform and high dispersion of Ni-0 and CoO over short channeled SBA-15, which would be benefit for the catalytic performance. For catalytic activity investigation, other four mesoporous SiO2 materials (MCM-41, MCM-4, MCF-2 and common SBA-15) were employed as supports to investigate the effect on the hydrogenation of FFR and the reaction parameters including the reaction temperature, initial of H-2 pressure, reaction time and the reusability of the catalysts were also studied. 100% of FFR conversion and 92.1% of THFA selectivity were achieved at 90 degrees C, 50 bar of initial H-2 and 2.0 h over catalyst Ni-Co/SBA-15 when the molar ratio of Ni to Co was 0.67.