Conversion of Xylose to Furfuryl Alcohol and 2‐Methylfuran in a Continuous Fixed‐Bed Reactor

Abstract An efficient process was designed for the synthesis of furfuryl alcohol and 2‐methylfuran from xylose using a continuous fixed‐bed reactor over a catalyst combining Hβ zeolite and Cu/ZnO/Al 2 O 3 in γ‐butyrolactone (GBL)/water as solvent. The cooperative effect of Hβ zeolite and GBL facilitated the dehydration of xylose and enhanced largely the furfural yield. The production of furfuryl alcohol and 2‐methylfuran can be simply tuned by changing the hydrogenation temperature for furfural over the Cu/ZnO/Al 2 O 3 catalyst. The yield for furfuryl alcohol reached 87.2 % at 150 °C whereas a yield of 86.8 % was achieved for 2‐methylfuran at 190 °C.