High production of furfural by flash pyrolysis of C6 sugars and lignocellulose by Pd-PdO/ZnSO4 catalyst

Qiaoqiao Zhou; Jinxing Gu; Jingwei Wang; Anthony De Girolamo; Sasha Yang; Lian Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-37250-0

High production of furfural by flash pyrolysis of C6 sugars and lignocellulose by Pd-PdO/ZnSO₄ catalyst

Nat Commun. 2023 Mar 21;14(1):1563. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37250-0.

Authors

Qiaoqiao Zhou¹, Jinxing Gu¹, Jingwei Wang¹, Anthony De Girolamo¹, Sasha Yang¹, Lian Zhang²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Monash University, Wellington Road, Clayton, VIC, Australia.
² Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Monash University, Wellington Road, Clayton, VIC, Australia. lian.zhang@monash.edu.

Abstract

Furfural (C₅H₄O₂) is an important platform chemical for the synthesis of next-generation bio-fuels. Herein, we report a novel and reusable heterogeneous catalyst, Pd-PdO/ZnSO₄ with 1.1 mol% palladium (Pd), for the production of furfural by flash pyrolysis of lignocelluloses at 400 °C. For both dry and wet C6 cellulose and its monomers, the furfural yields reach 74-82 mol%, relative to 96 mol% from C5 xylan and 23-33 wt% from sugarcane bagasse and corncob. The catalyst has a well-defined structure and bifunctional property, comprising a ZnSO₄ support for the dehydration and isomerization of glucose, and a local core-shell configuration for metallic Pd⁰ encapsulated by an oxide (PdO) layer. The PdO layer is active for the Grob fragmentation of formaldehyde (HCHO) from glucose, which is subsequently in-situ steam reformed into syn-gas (i.e. H₂ and CO), whereas the Pd⁰ core is active in promoting the last dehydration step for the formation of furfural.