Efficient selective synthesis of furfuryl alcohol from furfural over non-noble metal supported on bio-waste rice husk-derived carbon, silica, and carbon silica catalysts

Furfuryl alcohol is an interesting biomass-derived platform compound that is widely used and utilized as chemical intermediate in the polymer industry. Herein, the present work is aimed to produce furfuryl alcohol from hydrogenation of furfural over non-noble metal catalysts at atmospheric pressure in a continuous process. Rice husk derived (SiO 2 , C, and C-SiO 2 ) supported copper-based catalysts were prepared by the wet impregnation method and have been used for the first time. In particular, the Cu/C-SiO 2 catalyst used in this study showed optimal catalytic performance in the production of furfuryl alcohol (> 98% selectivity), which was illustrated to positively associate with the higher dispersion and large number of Cu active sites and weak metal-support interaction. The prepared catalysts are characterized by various experiments techniques such as H 2 -TPR, TPD, N 2 O-pulse chemisorptions, FTIR, TGA, TEM, XRD, and N 2 sorption characterization. The hydrogenation of furfural was investigated with different metals, such as Cu, Co, and Ni, and reveals that Cu supported on C-SiO 2 showed higher furfuryl alcohol yields then Co and Ni catalysts.