Catalytic Hydrogenation of Biomass-Derived Furoic Acid to Tetrahydrofuroic Acid Derivatives over Pd/CoOx Catalyst in Water

Abstract

Transformation of biomass-derived furans to value-added chemicals is considered to be an efficient way to produce raw materials for application in chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Herein, we report a facile pathway for the catalytic hydrogenation of 2-furoic acid and its derivatives to tetrahydrofuroic acids with excellent yields (87%–95 %) in water over the Pd/CoOx catalyst under mild reaction condition. Experimental findings inferred that the observed efficient catalytic activity of Pd/CoOx can be attributed to the cooperative effect of Pd nanoparticles (∼3.5 nm) and the CoOx support. Notably, catalysts with naked Pd nanoparticles or Pd immobilized over supports other than CoOx were less active for the studied catalytic transformation. Further, the studied catalytic transformation can be advantageously utilized for bulk-scale production of tetrahydro-2-furoic acid and tetrahydrofuran-2,5-dicarboxylic acid from the respective furoic acid precursors. Moreover, the studied Pd/CoOx catalyst exhibited appreciably good long-term stability for over 60 h during bulk-scale reaction and can be recycled for five consecutive catalytic runs during the production of tetrahydro-2-furoic acid from 2-furoic acid. © 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.