• Waldron, Keith W.
• Wilson, David R.
• Santos, Vannia Cristina Dos
• Giang, Cao Huong
• Osatiashtiani, Amin

Abstract

<p>A family of tungstated zirconia solid acid catalysts were synthesisedvia wet impregnation and subsequent thermochemical processing for thetransformation of glucose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Acidstrength increased with tungsten loading and calcination temperature,associated with stabilisation of tetragonal zirconia. High tungstendispersions of between 2 and 7 W atoms·nm⁻² were obtained inall cases, equating tosub-monolayer coverages. Glucose isomerisationand subsequent dehydration via fructose to HMF increased with W loadingand calcination temperature up to 600 °C, indicating that glucoseconversion to fructose was favoured over weak Lewis acid and/or basesites associated with the zirconia support, while fructose dehydrationand HMF formation was favoured over Brönsted acidic WO<i>_x</i>clusters. Aqueous phase reforming of steam exploded rice strawhydrolysate and condensate was explored heterogeneously for the firsttime over a 10 wt% WZ catalyst, resulting in excellent HMF yields ashigh as 15% under mildreaction conditions.</p>

Topics

• cluster
• phase
• tungsten