A sustainable and selective preparation of furanic ethers from bio-based platform compound with H2-treated MoS2 catalyst

The catalytic selective etherification of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (5-HMF) is considered as a feasible route to prepare the biofuels from biomass feedstocks. In this work, a novel solid acid catalyst derived from the flower-like MoS₂ is synthesized by combination of the facile hydrothermal method and reduction process. Therein, the number of Lewis and Bronsted acidic sites derived from the exposed Mo edges of MoS₂ can be efficiently regulated by changing the hydrogen annealing conditions. The prepared MoS₂-450-R catalyst exhibited a prominent activity for the conversion of 5-HMF to 5-(methoxymethyl)furanal dimethyl acetal (5-MFDMA) through the tandem acetalization and etherification under N₂ atmosphere, in which a 99.0 % conversion with 83.7 % selectivity of 5-MFDMA is obtained. Further investigations revealed that the abundant acidic sites of MoS₂-450-R plays a crucial role on the reaction of 5-HMF with methanol. Finally, based on the characterization of catalyst and reaction phenomena, a possible reaction network for the acetalization and etherification of 5-HMF with the methanol has been proposed.