One-pot Cascade Conversion of Fructose to 2,5-Diformylfuran Enabled by a Polyionic Liquids based Porous Catalyst

One-pot direct conversion of cheap and abundant fructose to 2,5-diformylfuran (DFF) is highly sought to achieve hundreds-fold value-increase and high atomic economy yet is still challenging by the lack of suitable catalysts with cascade conversion ability. In this work, we have developed a kind of porous hybrid catalyst (i.e. PMo10V2@2Br-PIL) based on the assembly of polyoxometalates and porous polyionic liquids that can be applied in one-pot conversion of fructose to DFF. The integration of PMo10V2 with 2Br-PIL can impart both Brönsted acid sites and oxidation sites in the porous structure that enables the one-pot cascade conversion. As a result, PMo10V2@2Br-PIL demonstrates remarkable DFF yield (95% yield), satisfying stability, recyclability and scale-up production ability (≈12.3 g in a batch experiment), demonstrating great potential in the industrial production of DFF from fructose. Theoretical calculations reveal the synergistic effect of Brönsted acid sites and oxidation sites in PMo10V2@2Br-PIL that can promote the one-pot conversion of fructose to DFF. This study deepens the insight of biomass transformation over hybrid catalysts by acidic/oxidative synergetic catalysis and contributes to the effort of designing highly active, selective, and multifunctional catalysts for one-pot biomass conversion.