Potential Application of Combined Furfural and Levulinic Acid as Feed for 2-Methyltetrahydrofuran Production

Abstract

Efficient conversion of renewable lignocellulosic biomass into value added chemical and biofuel is regarded as an alternative route to reduce the high dependence on fossil resources and the associated environment issues. In this study, furfural and levulinic acid, which are two of the most promising biomass-derived platform chemicals, were used as combined form of feed for the batch and continuous reaction for the production of 2-MTHF (2-Methyltetrahydrofuran), a fuel additive or green solvent [1,2].

In this study, the parameters, such as temperature, pressure, different type of feed, solvents and combined feed mixing ratio, were also optimized based on batch system and more over, studied at the continuous reaction system to improve the yield of 2-MTHF using non noble metals such as Ni and Cu with Al2O3 as a support[10,13]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to utilize lignocellulosic biomass except lignin by feeding furfural (C5) and levulinic acid (C6) for 2-MTHF production.