Enhanced furfural production from raw corn stover employing a novel heterogeneous acid catalyst.

With the aim to enhance the direct conversion of raw corn stover into furfural, a promising approach was proposed employing a novel heterogeneous strong acid catalyst (SC-CaCt-700) in different solvents. The novel catalyst was characterized by elemental analysis, N-2 adsorption-desorption, FT-IR, XPS, TEM and SEM. The developed catalytic system demonstrated superior efficacy for furfural production from raw corn stover. The effects of reaction temperature, residence time, catalyst loading, substrate concentration and solvent were investigated and optimized. 93% furfural yield was obtained from 150 mg corn stover at 200 degrees C in 100 min using 45 mg catalyst in gamma-valerolactone (GVL). In comparison, 51.5% furfural yield was achieved in aqueous media under the same conditions (200 degrees C, 5 h, and 45 mg catalyst), which is of great industrial interest. Furfural was obtained from both hemicelluloses and cellulose in corn stover, which demonstrated a promising routine to make the full use of biomass.