Rational Engineering of Brønsted Acid Sites for Product-Specific and Accelerated Furfurylamine Formation

Abstract

A Ru supported on modified H-ZSM-5 (Ru/DZ) with high dispersion of Ru and strong Brønsted acidic sites has been developed for the selective production of furfurylamine (FUA) via reductive amination of furfural compared to its counterpart (Ru/HZ). The strong Brønsted acidic sites facilitate efficient protonation of the N-furfurylidenefurfurylamine (N-FFA) intermediate, which is responsible for the selective formation of FUA, as clearly demonstrated by in-situ studies.