High-Efficiency Hydrogenation of Methyl Furoate to Valuable Methyl Tetrahydrofuran-2-Carboxylate over Ni-SiO2 Catalysts with High Ni Content and Dispersion

Methyl tetrahydrofuran-2-carboxylate (MeTHFC) and its derivatives are widely used as raw materials and intermediates in chemical industries. An efficient and clean method for the synthesis of MeTHFC was proposed, which included the oxidative esterification of biomass-based furfural into methyl furoate and the selective hydrogenation of methyl furoate into MeTHFC. The hydrogenation of biomass-derived methyl furoate was investigated on Ni-SiO2 catalysts with the different Ni contents prepared by a deposition-precipitation method. The Ni-SiO2 catalyst with 50 wt% Ni loading displayed an excellent performance with a high conversion under mild reaction conditions. Moreover, this catalyst presented a slight decrease of conversion, probably due to the increasing Ni-0 particle size and Ni leaching during 200 h time-on-stream. Characterization results revealed that the formation of Ni phyllosilicates was responsible for high Ni dispersion and specific surface area in the Ni-SiO2 catalysts, which facilitate their hydrogenation performance.