Paper
RSC Advances
Table 5 Recyclability of Cu@Mg/g-Al2O3 for hydrogenation of FF up
to five runsa
Notes and references
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Reaction run
FA yield (%)
Run 1
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Run 2
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Run 3
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Run 4
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Run 5
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Run 6
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a
Reaction conditions: FF (2.6 mol%); Cu@Mg/g-Al2O3 (0.1 g); 443.15 K;
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3.4 Representative reaction procedure
The hydrogenation of furfural was carried out in a 500 mL
stainless steel autoclave PARR reactor. The vessel was charged
with 2.6 mol of fufural, and 0.1 g of catalyst. The reactor was
sealed, purged three times with H2 at 2 MPa, then pressurized to
2 MPa, heated to 443.15 K and stirred at 300 rpm for 5 h with
continuous H2 ow (80 SLPH). Following the reaction, the
autoclave was cooled to room temperature and the hydrogen
gas was carefully released. The resulting reaction mixture was
centrifuged and catalyst was separated from the reaction. The
reaction mixture is then diluted with Toluene and analyzed by
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excellent yields over short reaction times compared with re-
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ESI Table 1†). Furthermore, the catalyst was applicable to
preparative scale reaction; 500 g of FF afforded 502 g of FA in
96% isolated yield (ESI†).
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4. Conclusions
The present study demonstrates high activity, selectivity and
stability of chromium-free Cu-based catalyst supported on
MgO-doped g-Al2O3 in solvent free hydrogenation of furfural to
furfuryl alcohol. The prepared catalyst is found to be selective in
the hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol with selectivity
of 95% at 100% conversion of furfural. The remarkably high
performance of this catalyst is attributed to the synergistic effect
of copper and magnesium resulting in active Cu–Mg species on
the surface of alumina.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conicts to declare.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank BPCL management for grant-
ing permission to publish the work and IIT-Bombay for
providing necessary support in the catalyst characterizations.
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2020
RSC Adv., 2020, 10, 41120–41126 | 41125