Selective One‐Pot Production of High‐Grade Diesel‐Range Alkanes from Furfural and 2‐Methylfuran over Pd/NbOPO4

A one-pot method for the selective production of high-grade diesel-range alkanes from biomass-derived furfural and 2-methylfuran (2-MF) was developed, by combining the hydroxyalkylation/alkylation (HAA) condensation of furfural with 2-MF and the following hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) over a multifunctional Pd/NbOPO4 catalyst. The effects of various reaction conditions as well as a variety of solid-acid catalysts and metal-loaded NbOPO4 catalysts have been systematically investigated to optimize the reaction conditions for the HAA condensation and the following HDO reaction, respectively. Under the optimal reaction conditions (80 oC, 5 h for HAA condensation and 200 oC, 4 MPa, 12 h for HDO reaction), up to 89.1% total yield of diesel-range alkanes was obtained from furfural and 2-MF by the one-pot method over Pd/NbOPO4.