Antimony‐meditated efficient conversion of carbohydrates to 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural in a simple THF‐H2O binary solvent

The renewable furan-based platform chemical, 5-hydromethylfurfural (HMF), was effectively produced from hexoses in a THF-H2O biphasic solvent. For the dehydration of fructose, antimony chloride (SbCl3) is first found to be more efficient than other metal chlorides in the THF-H2O medium. As a result, it is found that 84.0% of yield of HMF was obtained with SbCl3-LiBr catalytic system at 120°C for 1.5 h. In addition, the effects of reaction temperature, the additive and the used catalyst amount have been investigated and the suitable reaction conditions were achieved. Furthermore, the catalytic dehydration of various carbohydrates was studied and the promising results were obtained. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 34: 1136–1141, 2015