Boosting the activity of BiVOx via vanadium-promotion for highly selective oxidation of biomass-derived xylose toward formic acid

Formic acid is a versatile and promising value-added chemical derived from the chemoselective transformation of renewable biomass resources. However, achieving a high production rate of formic acid remains a pivotal and enormous challenge. Herein, we synthesized a sequence of BiVO x catalysts based on vanadium-promotion by a facile and cost-effective strategy for selective oxidation of biomass-derived xylose in water under O 2 atmosphere. Particularly, the resultant Bi 1 V 2 O x exhibited a remarkably enhanced catalytic activity, higher selectivity toward formic acid, and excellent recyclability, giving a yield of 75.8 % and a production rate of formic acid (9.22 mol FA mol V −1 h −1 ) at 170 °C within only 20 min. Such pronounced improved performance was largely attributed to the synergistic effect between V and Bi species, with higher surface area, abundant surface acidity, as well as stronger adsorption energy, meanwhile efficiently suppressing the formation of undesired by-products. This study demonstrates that the promotion of V in BiVO x leads to more efficient catalytic oxidation of xylose to formic acid, and with further driven research that proved great potential for generating formic acid from renewable biomass resources for future industrial application.