Micro-/mesopores confined ultrasmall Cu nanoparticles in SBA-15 as a highly efficient and robust catalyst for furfural hydrogenation to furfuryl alcohol

The main difficulty in the liquid phase furfural hydrogenation process is control of selectivity to target product among possible ones. When copper catalysts are used, they often suffer from low stability medium. Herein, we report a general preparation method based on glycine-assisted situ autocombustion synthesize Cu supported catalysts. This could lead highly active, selective and stable hydrogenation. resulting 10Cu-SBA-GLY catalyst (10 wt% SBA-15) achieve complete conversion furfuryl alcohol under mild reaction conditions. Further, neither leaching nor NPs sintering were observed during 5-run recycling tests, loss stays below 3%. Such exceptional features make these Cu-SBA-GLY potential for industrial applications not only but also other hydroconversion processes. • A low-cost robust Cu/SBA-15 was applied alcohol. Furfuryl produced with 100% yield glycine assisted resulted high thermal resistance phase. activity retained after 5 cycles.