N-doped carbon layer-coated Au nanocatalyst for H2-free conversion of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural to 5-methylfurfural

Deoxygenative upgrading of 5-hydromethylfurfural (HMF) into valuable chemicals has attracted intensive research interest in recent years, with product selectivity control remaining an important topic. Herein, TiO2 supported gold catalysts coated with a thin N-doped porous carbon (NPC) layer were developed via a polydopamine-coating-carbonization strategy and utilized for pathway-specific conversion of HMF into 5-methylfurfural (5-MF) with the use of renewable formic acid (FA) as the deoxygenation reagent. The as-fabricated Au/TiO2@NPC exhibited excellent catalytic performance with a high yield of 5-MF (>95%). The catalytic behavior of [email protected] catalysts was shown to be correlated with the suitable combination of highly dispersed Au nanoparticles and favorable interfacial interactions in the [email protected] core-shell hetero-nanoarchitectures, thereby facilitating the preferential esterification of HMF with FA and suppressing unproductive FA dehydrogenation, which promoted the selective formylation/decarboxylation of hydroxy-methyl group in HMF in a pathway-specific manner. The present NPC/metal interfacial engineering strategy may provide a potential guide for the rational design of advanced catalysts for a wide variety of heterogeneous catalysis processes in terms of the conversion of biomass source.