Fructose dehydration to 5HMF in a green self-catalysed DES composed of N,N-diethylethanolammonium chloride and p-toluenesulfonic acid monohydrate (p-TSA)

Due to the increasing concerns about the availability and accessibility of fossil fuel re- serves, and the subsequent effect of using them on climate change, production of green energy has recently become a hot area of interest in the research field. As a renewable energy source, biomass conversion to biofuels has shown a great potential towards green fuel production; particularly fructose conversion to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5HMF) as a building block material and source of green fuels and other high value chemicals. Herein, we investigate fructose dehydration to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5HMF) as a green fuel precursor, using a green self-catalysed environmentally friendly Deep Eutectic Solvent (DES), composed of inexpensive N,N-diethylethanolammonium chloride as organic salt and p-toluenesulfonic acid monohydrate (p-TSA) as a hydrogen bond donor (HBD) and novel medium for the fructose dehydration reaction.
The advantage of using this DES is its ability to act as a solvent and catalyst simultaneously. It has shown to actively catalyse the dehydration reaction of fructose under moderate reaction conditions with a high 5HMF yield of 84.8% at a reaction temperature of 80 C, reaction time of 1 h, DES mixing ratio of 1:0.5 salt to p-TSA (w/w), and initial fructose ratio of 5.