Support Effect of Ru Catalysts for Efficient Conversion of Biomass-Derived 2,5-Hexanedione to Different Products
Manli Hua, Jinliang Song, Xin Huang, Minqiang Hou, Honglei Fan, Zhaofu Zhang, Tianbin Wu, Buxing Han
Abstract
Tuning the activity of supported metals by changing the properties of supports is a highly attractive strategy to realize some important reactions in biomass transformation. Herein, Ru nanoparticles supported on montmorillonite (MMT) and hydroxyapatite (HAP), denoted as Ru/MMT and Ru/HAP, were prepared. It was found that the activity of the Ru catalysts for different routes to convert biomass-derived 2,5-hexanedione (2,5-HD) could be controlled by the support materials. Ru/MMT was active for the synthesis of dimethyltetrahydrofuran from hydrogenation of 2,5-HD at 90 °C, while Ru/HAP showed excellent performance on the conversion of 2,5-HD into N-substituted tetrahydropyrroles at 30 °C via direct reductive amination. Systematic study revealed that the property of support materials influenced the activity of Ru/MMT and Ru/HAP for the different routes, affording different reaction pathways for conversion of 2,5-HD.