Selective and stable upgrading of biomass-derived furans into plastic monomers by coupling homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis

Summary

Selective transformation of C–O bonds in biomass-derived furanic compounds provides diverse approaches for the production of fuels and chemicals. However, the challenges of low C–O bond cleavage selectivity and catalyst stability have not been properly addressed. Herein, we demonstrate a sustainable approach to produce valuable hydroxyalkanoates from (hemi)cellulose-derived furans via coupling homogeneous carbonylation and heterogeneous hydrogenation, the former promises an efficient (turnover number >10⁴) carbon growing procedure, the latter proceeds over non-precious 8Ni/CeO₂ catalyst with unprecedented selectivity (>97%) and stability (>2,400 h) in a fixed-bed reactor, which is found to be enabled by the bifunctional Ni sites of metallic Ni and interfacial Niⁿ⁺–O_V–Ce³⁺ that matches well with corresponding tandem hydrogenation of C=C and C2–O bonds in carbonylated furan, respectively. This work provides a promising example for promoting biomass conversion by the development of "task-specific" carbon growing strategy and multifunctional heterogeneous catalyst matching with the tandem process.