Catalytic conversion of Jerusalem artichoke stalk to ethylene glycol over a combined catalyst of WO3 and Raney Ni

Jerusalem artichoke stalk (JAS) was employed as the feedstock for the production of ethylene glycol (EG) with a combined catalyst comprising commercial WO 3 and Raney Ni. The raw JAS contains 51.6 wt% cellulose, 10.3 wt% hemicellulose, 17.2 wt% lignin, 1.7 wt% ash, and 19.2 wt% water-soluble substances. It was found that the lignin component in the JAS had little effect on the conversion of hemicellulose while the water-soluble substances caused a negative effect, which led to an EG yield of only 29.9%. After a simple hot water pretreatment, most of the water-soluble substances were removed, and the EG yield was increased to 37.6%. Moreover, the hot water pretreatment also led to an improvement in the durability of the catalyst. The effects of reaction temperature and reaction duration were also investigated.