Organic acid catalyzed production of platform chemical 5-hydroxymethylfurfural from fructose: Process comparison and evaluation based on kinetic modeling

Fructose was converted to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), an important biomass-derived platform chemical, under mild conditions (100–130 °C) with several organic acids including p -toluene sulfonic ( p TSA), oxalic, maleic, malonic and succinic acids as the catalysts. The process kinetics was compared considering fructose dehydration to HMF as the objective reaction and condensation of fructose and HMF to humin and rehydration of HMF as the main side reactions. DMSO was found to be the most effective solvent reaction medium to obtain high fructose conversion and HMF yield. Observed kinetic modeling illustrated that the rehydration and condensation of HMF in DMSO actually could be neglected, especially for the oxalic acid catalyzed system. The determined observed activation energy for fructose conversion to HMF and humin in DMSO medium was 33.75 and 24.94 kJ/mol for p TSA catalyzed system, and 96.51 and 78.39 kJ/mol for oxalic acid-catalyzed system, respectively. HMF yields of 90.2% and 84.1% were obtained for p TSA and oxalic acid catalyzed systems, respectively.