Micro-sized hydrothermal carbon supporting metal oxide nanoparticles as efficient catalyst for mono-dehydration of sugar alcohol

Abstract

Most known catalytic dehydration of sugar alcohols such as D-sorbitol and D-mannitol can only produce di-dehydrated forms as major product, but mono-dehydrated products are also useful chemicals. Moreover, both di- and mono-dehydration demand a high temperature (150°C or higher), which deserves further attentions. To improve the mono-dehydration efficiency, a series of metal-containing hydrothermal carbonaceous materials (HTC) are prepared as catalyst in this work. Characterization reveals that the composition of preparative solution has a key influence on the morphology of HTC. In transformation of D-sorbitol, all HTC catalysts show low conversions in water regardless of temperature, but much better outputs are obtained in ethanol, especially at a higher temperature. When D-mannitol is selected as substrate, moderate to high conversions are obtained in both water and ethanol. On the other hand, high mono-dehydration selectivity is obtained for both sugar alcohols by using all catalysts. The origin of mono-dehydration selectivity and role of carbon component in catalysis are discussed in association with calculations. This study provides an efficient, mild, eco-friendly, and cost-effective system for mono-dehydration of sugar alcohols, which means a lot to development in new detergents or other fine chemicals.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

hydrothermal carbon / morphology / catalyst / mono-dehydration / sugar alcohol

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Acknowledgments

This study is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. xjj2014005).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-020-0677-0 and is accessible for authorized users.

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