Synthesis of mesoporous sulfonated carbon from chicken bones to boost rapid conversion of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural and carbohydrates to 5-ethoxymethylfurfural

Sulfonated carbon material is an important class of catalysts, but controllable preparation of high-performance materials for biomass transformations is still challenging. Here, we demonstrate an effective strategy to prepare mesoporous sulfonated carbon materials from chicken bones to convert carbohydrates to 5-ethoxymethylfurfural (EMF). The carbonization of chicken bones without using additional templates gave hierarchical porous carbon materials. The subsequent sulfonation by chemical reduction approach introduced 2.33 mmol/g of -PhSO3H group, reserved abundant mesopores but blocked micropores. The sulfonated carbon materials afforded EMF yields of 94.7% and 68.6% from 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and fructose in ethanol within 1.5 h and 2 h, respectively, without using high boiling point co-solvents. Furthermore, the apparent activation energies for HMF and fructose conversion were 29.1 and 49.5 kJ/mol, respectively. The catalyst could be reused four times with EMF yield decreasing from 68.6% to 62.7%.