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Zr-DBS with Sulfonic Group: A Green and Highly Efficient Catalyst for Alcoholysis of Furfuryl Alcohol to Ethyl Levulinate

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Abstract

The alcoholysis of furfuryl alcohol (FA) produce ethyl levulinate (EL) plays a crucial role in the field of biomass conversion. In this work, a novel Zr-base catalyst with sulfonic groups in its structure was prepared by the co-precipitation of sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate and ZrOCl2 (Zr-DBS) under non-toxic conditions. It was found that Zr-DBS has an excellent catalytic performance for this reaction and an EL yield of 95.27% could be achieved. Besides, Zr-DBS could be easily separated from the reaction system and reused at least four times without a significantly decrease in activity. Meanwhile, Zr-DBS was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), N2 adsorption–desorption, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and Temperature-programmed desorption of ammonia (NH3-TPD). The main reason for the high catalytic activity of the Zr-DBS was that the synergetic effects of Lewis and Brønsted acid sites and appropriate textural properties.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (No. KYCX20_1777)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical and Material Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, 214122, China

    Xiaoning Li, Yehui Li, Xiang Wang, Qingrui Peng, Wei Hui, ·Aiyun Hu & Haijun Wang

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  1. Xiaoning Li
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  2. Yehui Li
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  3. Xiang Wang
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  4. Qingrui Peng
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  5. Wei Hui
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Correspondence to Haijun Wang.

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Li, X., Li, Y., Wang, X. et al. Zr-DBS with Sulfonic Group: A Green and Highly Efficient Catalyst for Alcoholysis of Furfuryl Alcohol to Ethyl Levulinate. Catal Lett 151, 2622–2630 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10562-020-03516-1

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