One-pot catalytic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse into furfural using a pressurized phosphoric acid/acetone/water system

The conventional production of platform compounds from biomass suffers from low yield, long residence time, and waste of cellulose and lignin components. To achieve the separation of three components in sugarcane bagasse with a high yield of furfural (FF), this study investigated various factors such as reaction temperature and time, pressure, acid concentration within the pressurized phosphoric acid/acetone/water (PPAWS) system. The results indicated that under the optimized conditions of external pressure (1.5 Mpa N2), solid/liquid ratio (1:52.8 g ml- 1), acid concentration (8.3 wt% H3PO4) and dose of metal chloride salt (25 % AlCl3), a high yield (72.7 %) of FF and high content of cellulose (92.63 %) in the hydrolysis residue were obtained in only 5 min. The lignin was retained in the hydrolysate and its content in the hydrolysis residue was only 4.4 %, with a removal rate of 93.4 %. The interaction experiments demonstrated the synergistic effect among these factors. Furthermore, this study pioneered the online visualization of catalytic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse using a highpressure differential scanning calorimeter to monitor heat absorption and exothermic reactions. It implied that the acetone present emerged as a solvent that promoted FF production by inhibiting the condensation reactions under high pressure.