1. Photocatalytic valorization of furfural to value-added chemicals via mesoporous carbon nitride: a possibility through a metal-free pathway
- Author
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Venugopala Rao Battula, Kamalakannan Kailasam, Arkaprabha Giri, Abhijit Patra, and Deepak Kumar Chauhan
- Subjects
chemistry.chemical_compound ,chemistry ,Chemical engineering ,Singlet oxygen ,Photocatalysis ,Graphitic carbon nitride ,Maleic anhydride ,Nitride ,Mesoporous material ,Furfural ,Catalysis - Abstract
Strategizing the exploitation of renewable solar light could undoubtedly provide new insight into the field of biomass valorization. Therefore, for the first time, we reported the heterogeneous photocatalytic oxidation route of renewable furfural (FUR) to produce industrial feedstocks maleic anhydride (MAN) and 5-hydroxy-2(5H)-furanone (HFO) under simulated solar light (AM 1.5 G) using molecular oxygen (O2) as terminal oxidant and mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride (SGCN) as photocatalyst. SGCN showed an excellent photo-conversion (>95%) of FUR with 42 % and 33 % selectivity of MAN and HFO respectively. Moreover, an excellent selectivity towards MAN (66 %) under natural sunlight manifests a pioneering route for the sustainable production of MAN. In addition, the underlying mechanistic route of the FUR photo-oxidation was investigated via various experiments including scavenger studies, substrate studies, and electron spin resonance (ESR) studies which constructively proved the pivotal role of singlet oxygen (1O2) and holes (h+) in FUR photo-oxidation.
- Published
- 2022
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