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| Comparative Synthesis of Furfural with Inorganic and Organic Acidic Hydrolysis of Discarded Corncobs as a Precursor for Catalytic Hydrogenation into Tetrahydrofuran. |
Olabimtan Olabode.H, Opeyemi Adegboyo, Okibe Ora. P, Samuel Florence.A, Asmita Basu,
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Abstract:
Maize corn is agro-waste biomass with the component of pentosan, a five-carbon polymer that applies for the production of furfural, a precursor to the synthesis of tetrahydrofuran as a synthetic polymer subunit. Inorganic(H2SO4) and organic(CH3COOH) acidic hydrolysis at 1M concentration, 100oC refluxing temperature with 50gram of the cobs powder in the presence of NaCl catalyst under distillation at 162oC were developed. The entire process activated the conversion of the pentosan from the maize cob into furfural which economically can be hydrogenated with a palladium catalyst at 220oC in achieving tetrahydrofuran. Classical aniline-acetic anhydride test confirmed the presence of furfural with the two distillates (H2SO4 and CH3COOH) at the yields of 42 and 35% respectively. Selected physicochemical properties such as densities, refractive indices, water solubilities, viscosities, boiling points, dielectric constants, and surface tensions were conducted according to standard methods. GCMS and FTIR of the distillates were also analyzed under the same analytical conditions.
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