Conversion of corn stalk into furfural using a novel heterogeneous strong acid catalyst in γ-valerolactone.

A novel solid acid catalyst was prepared by the copolymerization of p-toluenesulfonic acid and paraformaldehyde and then characterized by FT-IR, TG/DTG, HRTEM and N2-BET. Furfural was successfully produced by the dehydration of xylose and xylan using the novel catalyst in γ-valerolactone. This investigation focused on effects of various reaction conditions including solvent, acid catalyst, reaction temperature, residence time, water concentration, xylose loading and catalyst dosage on the dehydration of xylose to furfural. It was found that the solid catalyst displayed extremely high activity for furfural production. 80.4% furfural yield with 98.8% xylose conversion was achieved at 170°C for 10 min. The catalyst could be recycled at least five times without significant loss of activity. Furthermore, 83.5% furfural yield and 19.5% HMF yield were obtained from raw corn stalk under more severe conditions (190°C for 100 min).