The effect of operating conditions on the conversion of the agricultural waste into 5-hdroxymethylfurfural

Abstract The bio-refinery currently is the main concern of the scientific society, while the bio-refinery is considered as an alternative approach to fulfil the demands of the oil alternatives and the energy production. As its goal to gradually be replacing the dependence on the fossil-fuel resources, the 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural is one of the important intermediate compounds in the chemical industries due to its high potential availability from different lignocellulose wastes. However, the 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural is considered as raw material for producing petroleum refining industry, chemical resistant resin, as well biofuel production and other bio-alternatives materials to replace the petrochemicals materials. Therefore, the main objective of the present study is to determine the optimum process conditions of conversion of the agriculture waste into 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), such as a solvent type, catalyst type, reaction time and temperature. The experimental setup is designed for integration of the pre-treatment, hydrolysis, and dehydration process in one-stage high pressurized vessel. The results show that 5-HMF is successfully produced with high yield by the dehydration of glucose in Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) as a solvent. Additionally, increasing the temperature up to 250°C improves the glucose conversion and raises the HMF-yield up to 47wt%. However, the reaction time is found to be more critical, where by increasing the reaction time the yield increases up to a certain limit then it decreases and this may be due to the rise in the dissociation rate to by products. Furthermore, the DMSO is approved as a solvent where it is highly selective of HMF, and it has low side reactions compared to water/butanol.