Kinetic study of furfural formation accompanying supercritical carbon dioxide extraction

Abstract

Furfural formation from xylose is a typical successive reaction in which the furfural produced in a reactor disappears by side reactions such as polymerization and decomposition. In this work we investigated the effect of the extraction of furfural by supercritical C02 on the selectivity and yield of the furfural. Furthermore, based on kinetic data we proposed a reaction model for furfural formation with or without supercritical C02 extraction. Judging from the experimental results, the recovery of furfural from the reaction mixture by supercritical C02 extraction greatly improved the selectivity and yield of the furfural owing to the suppression of its side reactions. A simple reaction model could represent satisfactorily the change in furfural selectivity and yield with the xylose conversion for the reaction without supercritical C02 extraction, while the model could explain fairly well the reaction accompanying supercritical C02 extraction. © 1992, The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan. All rights reserved.