Encapsulation of CuO nanoparticles within silicalite-1 as a regenerative catalyst for transfer hydrogenation of furfural

Mingwei Weng; Zihao Zhang; Francis Okejiri; Yue Yan; Yubing Lu; Jinshu Tian; Xiuyang Lu; Siyu Yao; Jie Fu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102884

Encapsulation of CuO nanoparticles within silicalite-1 as a regenerative catalyst for transfer hydrogenation of furfural

iScience. 2021 Jul 17;24(8):102884. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102884. eCollection 2021 Aug 20.

Authors

Mingwei Weng^{1

2}, Zihao Zhang¹, Francis Okejiri³, Yue Yan¹, Yubing Lu⁴, Jinshu Tian⁵, Xiuyang Lu¹, Siyu Yao¹, Jie Fu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
² Institute of Zhejiang University - Quzhou, 78 Jiuhua Boulevard North, Quzhou 324000, China.
³ Department of Chemistry, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
⁵ State Key Laboratory for Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, 361005, Xiamen, China.

Abstract

Catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) of biomass-derived furfural (FAL) to furfuryl alcohol is recognized as one of the most versatile techniques for biomass valorization. However, the irreversible sintering of metal sites under the high-temperature reaction or during the coke removal regeneration process poses a serious concern. Herein, we present a silicalite-1-confined ultrasmall CuO structure (CuO@silicalite-1) and then compared its catalytic efficiency against conventional surface-supported CuO structure (CuO/silicalite-1) toward CTF of FAL with alcohols. Characterization results revealed that CuO nanoparticles encapsulated within the silicalite-1 matrix are ∼1.3 nm in size in CuO@silicalite-1, exhibiting better dispersion as compared to that in the CuO/silicalite-1. The CuO@silicalite-1, as a result, exhibited nearly 100-fold higher Cu-mass-based activity than the CuO/silicalite-1 counterpart. More importantly, the activity of the CuO@silicalite-1 catalyst can be regenerated via facile calcination to remove the surface-bound carbon deposits, unlike the CuO/silicalite-1 that suffered severe deactivation after use and cannot be effectively regenerated.

Keywords: Catalysis; Chemical reaction; Chemistry; Inorganic chemistry; Materials science.