Production of furfural from pentosan-rich biomass: Analysis of process parameters during simultaneous furfural stripping

Among the furan-based compounds, furfural (FUR) shows interesting properties as building-block or industrial solvent. It is produced from pentosan-rich biomass via xylose cyclodehydration. The current FUR production makes use of homogeneous catalysts and excessive amounts of steam. The development of greener furfural production and separation techniques implies the use of heterogeneous catalysts and innovative separation processes. This work deals with the conversion of corncobs as xylose source to be dehydrated to furfural. The results reveal differences between the use of direct corncob hydrolysis and dehydration to furfural and the prehydrolysis and dehydration procedures. Moreover, this work focuses on an economical analysis of the main process parameters during N-2-stripping and its economical comparison to the current steam-stripping process. The results show a considerable reduction of the annual utility costs due to use of recyclable nitrogen and the reduction of the furfural purification stages. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.