Furfural—A Promising Platform for Lignocellulosic Biofuels

Abstract

Furfural offers a promising, rich platform for lignocellulosic biofuels. These include methylfuran and methyltetrahydrofuran, valerate esters, ethylfurfuryl and ethyltetrahydrofurfuryl ethers as well as various C(10)-C(15) coupling products. The various production routes are critically reviewed, and the needs for improvements are identified. Their relative industrial potential is analysed by defining an investment index and CO(2) emissions as well as determining the fuel properties for the resulting products. Finally, the most promising candidate, 2-methylfuran, was subjected to a road trial of 90,000 km in a gasoline blend. Importantly, the potential of the furfural platform relies heavily on the cost-competitive production of furfural from lignocellulosic feedstock. Conventional standalone and emerging coproduct processes-for example, as a coproduct of cellulosic ethanol, levulinic acid or hydroxymethyl furfural-are expensive and energetically demanding. Challenges and areas that need improvement are highlighted. In addition to providing a critical review of the literature, this paper also presents new results and analysis in this area.

Furfural production from birch hemicelluloses by two-step processing: a potential technology for biorefineries

“…F, a commercial product with a favourable market forecast (Dalin Yebo 2015), was considered as one of the top 12 platform chemicals derived from biomass in a report from the U.S. Department of Energy (Werpy et al 2004), which was updated 6 years later (Bozell and Petersen, 2010;De Jong et al 2012). F is an intermediate for manufacturing other chemicals (such as methylfuran, furfuryl alcohol, tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol, tetrahydrofuran, methyltetrahydrofuran, or furoic acid), and has a potential for further conversion into fuel or fuel additives (Lange et al 2012;Yan et al 2014;Choi et al 2015). The current technology for F production, based on the acid hydrolysis of native xylan-containing raw materials, can be significantly improved in terms of yield and energy efficiency (Lange et al 2012;Cai et al 2014).…”

“…F is an intermediate for manufacturing other chemicals (such as methylfuran, furfuryl alcohol, tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol, tetrahydrofuran, methyltetrahydrofuran, or furoic acid), and has a potential for further conversion into fuel or fuel additives (Lange et al 2012;Yan et al 2014;Choi et al 2015). The current technology for F production, based on the acid hydrolysis of native xylan-containing raw materials, can be significantly improved in terms of yield and energy efficiency (Lange et al 2012;Cai et al 2014).…”

A Two-Step Conversion of Corn Stover into Furfural and Levulinic Acid in a Water/Gamma-Valerolactone System

“…With the rapidly expanding field of lignocellulosic biomass conversion, several platform chemicals have been identified as promising building blocks for the bio-refinery industry; among these candidates, furfural and levulinic acid (LA) have received increasing interest (Cai et al 2014;Qi et al 2014). Furfural, which is derived from pentose, has been widely used as a solvent in the petroleum industry and is a precursor for many furan-based chemicals, such as furfuryl alcohol, furoic acid, maleic anhydride tetrahydrofuran, and phenolics (Lange et al 2012). Furfural also holds great potential for the production of "drop in" fuels such as dimethylfuran or ethyl levulinate, which can be produced by polymerization (Yan et al 2014;Bohre et al 2015).…”

Microwave‐Assisted Selective Hydrogenation of Furfural to Furfuryl Alcohol Employing a Green and Noble Metal‐Free Copper Catalyst

“…Furfural (FAL) has recently gained a lot of attention as a key platform chemical derived from hemicellulosic biomass 1, 2. FAL hydrogenation may lead to several value‐added products such as furfuryl alcohol (FOL), tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (THFA), 2‐methylfuran (MF), and 2‐methyltetrahydrofuran (MTHF) as depicted in Scheme 1 3, 4, 5.…”