Effective and safer catalyst KHSO4 for producing furfural: a platform compound.

Furfural from biomass such as corncob is an important chemical with wide applications. The current industrial production of furfural uses H₂SO₄ as catalyst which is highly toxic and corrosive. It was demonstrated that the acidic salt KHSO₄ was an effective and safer catalyst for furfural production. The optimum conditions for furfural production from corncob were investigated. The XRD and TG analyses of raw corncob and typical reaction residue were conducted and discussed. Finally, an outlook to the future work was put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]