Issue 20, 2015 - Progress in biomass conversion of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural

Researchers from the Fine Chemical Engineering Center of Xinjiang Institute of Physics and Chemical Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences have made progress
in the biomass conversion of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural.
5-(hydroxymethylfurfural) is an important biomass conversion platform compound, which can synthesize furan polyesters, polyurethanes, etc.

with similar properties to terephthalic acid polyesters of petrochemical products.

According to the designability and diversity of ionic liquids, researchers designed a recoverable temperature-controlled acidic ionic liquid organic solvent catalytic system, and applied it to the
reaction of biomass conversion to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural.
Studies have shown that the yield of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural can reach 91.
2%; After the reaction, the catalyst can be recovered by simply pouring out the upper liquid, and the catalyst can be reused 5 times without deactivation
.

It is reported that the research team has conducted in-depth research on the kinetics of two systems for the conversion of glucose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, and systematically studied the catalytic activity of various Lewuitates, and found that the pH value of the reaction system has an important influence
on the catalytic activity of Lewitate.
They also calculated the apparent activation energy of various Lewulate catalytic systems, further verifying the dependence of Lewulate activity on the pH of the system
.
(Ping)