Highly efficient g-C3N4 supported ruthenium catalysts for the catalytic transfer hydrogenation of levulinic acid to liquid fuel γ-valerolactone

• DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2021.05.159
• Publication Date: 2021-06-04T16:23:31Z
• Authors: Bo Cai; Yongjian Zhang; Junfeng Feng; Cong Huang; Tianyi Ma; Hui Pan
• Keywords: 660; 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy; 0104 chemical sciences

Abstract Gamma-valerolactone (GVL) is a versatile building block compound with wide applications and it can be obtained from biomass-derived chemical levulinic acid (LA). In this study, graphite carbon nitride (g-C3N4) were prepared from two different precursors (urea and melamine) and used as the support to anchor ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticle (Ru/g-C3N4) for catalytic transfer hydrogenation of LA to GVL. The resulting catalyst prepared from urea precursor (Ru/UCN) showed 100% LA conversion and nearly theoretic GVL yield of 99.8% under mild condition. Detailed characterizations of the Ru/g-C3N4 suggested that Ru showed different interactions with the g-C3N4 supports from two different precursors. Ru nanoparticles exhibited smaller size and better dispersion on the g-C3N4 support from urea (UCN) than that from melamine (MCN). The XPS result indicated that more electron rich Ru0 species on the Ru/UCN catalyst also contributed to the higher catalytic activity of the Ru/UCN. Furthermore, the Ru/UCN catalyst was demonstrated high stability in acidic reaction medium and remained highly reactive after recycled for 5 times.