Kinetics study of the selective hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol over CuAl2O4 spinel catalyst

The catalytic hydrogenation of furfural is an important process that produce value-added furfural derivatives, especially furfuryl alcohol. In this work, the kinetics of the catalytic furfural hydrogenation over copper aluminate spinel (CuAl2O4) was studied in a batch-type reactor under various reaction parameters including the stirring speed, initial furfural concentration, H2 pressure, and reaction temperature. The CuAl2O4 catalyst showed excellent performance in furfuryl alcohol production as the furfural conversion could reach 100% and the furfuryl alcohol yield was >98%. The furfural concentration and the reaction temperature were found to significantly impact on the reaction rate, while other parameters showed less contributions leading to a flexible operation window. It was determined that the reaction rate expression followed the equation r = kCfurfural0.335 with the apparent activation energy of 44.6 kJ/mol. The developed kinetic model for hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol were in good agreement with the experimental results. The kinetic model presented here could be useful for process design and scale-up of the hydrogenation reactor in the industrial application.