Alumina-coated mesoporous silica SBA-15 as a solid catalyst for catalytic conversion of fructose into liquid biofuel candidate ethyl levulinate

Ethyl levulinate (EL) will be biomass-derived compound, which could be transformed into a variety of valuable compounds. In this work, a series of alumina-coated silica SBA-15 catalysts were prepared via wet-impregnation method and were applied in the conversion of fructose into EL. These catalysts were characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy; low and wide-angle XRD, N-2 adsorption-desorption, ICP-OES, TEM, SEM, EDX and elemental mapping techniques. Among the catalysts, Al-5-SB catalyst with Al content of 2.2% showed the best results for EL production with the selectivity and yield 86% and 58%, respectively. The various parameters such as the temperature of the reaction, time of the reaction, catalyst amount and the initial amount of fructose were investigated. Moreover, an experimental design was used to find optimized reaction conditions so that 190 degrees C for the reaction temperature, 4 h for the reaction time, and 50 mg of the catalyst for EL production was selected. As well as, the reusability of the catalyst was studied and it was reused for four runs without significant change in its catalytic activity.