Boosting selective room-temperature hydrogenation of furfural over carbon supported Ru-Sn catalyst

Introduction of Sn boosts selective C O hydrogenation of furfural. • Catalyst shows 99% yield of furfuryl alcohol without any external heat input. • Ru-SnO x interface fabricated by ethylene glycol method enhances activity. • Constructed metal-support interaction strengthens the reusability. Catalytic hydrogenation of C O is critical for converting biomass-derived platform molecules to value-added chemicals. However, how to strike a balance for the catalysis between high efficiency and green production remains a challenge. In this work, carbon supported Ru-Sn catalyst showed excellent room-temperature performance in furfural hydrogenation, > 99% furfural conversion with > 99% product selectivity to furfuryl alcohol can be achieved without external heating source. The solvent was found to play an important role in catalytic performance. Compared with Ru/C, introduction of Sn markedly enhanced the catalytic performance. The introduced Sn behaves as the electrophilic C O activation sites in catalysis, a synergy between Ru and Sn enhances the activity. Ru-Su/C synthesized via ethylene glycol (E-G) method showed a higher activity than that synthesized by hydrazine hydrate (H-H) method, whereas the latter exhibited a better reusability than the former. Ru-SnO x interface fabricated by E-G method boosts the catalytic activity, whereas the strong anchoring effect of the support in Ru-Sn/C (H-H) strengthens the catalytic reusability. This study revealed a practical way to regulate the Ru-Sn sites configuration of Ru-Sn/C used in efficient furfural hydrogenation at room-temperature. Download: Download high-res image (127KB) Download: Download full-size image