2.1. Catalysts characterization
XRD pattern of several basic oxides and hydrotalcite supported Au catalysts were characterized in
Figure 1. The diffraction peaks in all the samples were able to agree well with the PDF cards of the supports. Of note, the XRD diffraction angle of Mg
2Al-HT shifted to a smaller angle after the Mg-Al molar ratio was reduced to 2:1, indicating that the layer spacing of the hydrotalcite structure became larger and the increase of aluminum content. No diffraction peaks appeared for gold, showing the size of Au nanoparticles is small. TEM images displayed the mean size distribution of gold nanoparticles on the surface of different catalysts in
Figure 2. The mean size of gold nanoparticles was uniformly distributed about 5-6 nm, which confirmed the four types supports hardly affect the size of Au nanoparticles. ICP-OES tested the Au content in supported catalyst, and the content of Au was 0.39 wt%.
Catalytic performance of a series of oxide and hydrotalcite supported Au catalysts were tested in oxidative esterification of DFF. The reaction was conducted at 140
oC and 2 MPa air for 8 h. The possible conversion paths for oxidative esterification of DFF in methanol are listed in
Scheme 1. According to the catalytic performance, these catalysts, that was, Au/SiO
2, Au/TiO
2, Au/CeO
2, Au/ZrO
2 and Au/Al
2O
3, showed 80% selectivity of bis(dimethoxymethyl)furan (BDM) and 20% selectivity of 5-(dimethoxymethyl) furan-2-carbaldehyde (FFDM) at complete conversion of DFF (
Figure 3). La
2O
3 and ZnO supported Au catalysts had high yield of FDMC (74.6% for Au/La
2O
3, 83.8% for Au/ZnO) under 99% conversion of DFF, and the by-product was methyl 5-(dimethoxymethyl) furan-2-carboxylate (DMME). Au/Mg
3Al exhibited the best catalytic activity with 97.8% selectivity of FDMC at 99% conversion. It was worth noting that when the Mg-Al ratio was 2:1, the selectivity of FDMC and carbon balance of the reaction would decrease significantly. The amount of reactants lost was 49.5%, and only 42.4% of 5-(methoxycarbonyl) furan-2-carboxylic acid (MECA) was collected. Similar to Au/Mg
2Al-HT, significant carbon loss (34.3%) was also found on the Au/MgO catalyst. Due to the high carbon loss, Au/MgO had a 99% selectivity for FDMC, but the yield of the target product was only 65.7%. Therefore, these activity experiment directly reflected the influence of supports on product selectivity. In general, those catalysts with base sites (Au/Mg
3Al-HT, Au/Mg
2Al-HT, Au/ZnO, Au/MgO and Au/La
2O
3) allowed to obtain oxidative esterification products, while catalysts with acid sites could only obtain aldol condensation products after the reaction [
13]. According to literature [
2], basic supports could encourage the hemiacetal converted to ester, but acidic supports prefer to convert hemiacetals to acetals, which is a reversible process. In oxidative esterification of DFF, the presence of base sites is crucial for promote DFF oxidative esterification. Additionally, different basicity of the supports would affect the carbon balance of the reaction and the reaction intermediates of esterification. We detected the presence of magnesium salts in the solution after reaction, indicating the loss of magnesium of the supports could hinder the further esterification of the intermediate products (carboxylic acids). The reaction intermediates reacted with magnesium ions to form salt, further led to the carbon loss.
In order to characterize the strength of alkalinity on different supports. CO
2-TPD analysis was carried out on the basic supported Au catalysts. In
Figure 4a, Au/Mg
3Al-HT showed the maximum desorption quantity of CO
2 between 350-600
oC, and Au/La
2O
3 showed obvious CO
2 desorption signal between 600-800
oC. For Au/Mg
2Al-HT, Au/MgO and Au/ZnO, the temperature between 250-600
oC showed very weak signals. Corresponding to the different CO
2 desorption temperature, the basic sites on the catalyst surface can be divided into weak basic sites (<250
oC), medium basic sites (250-400
oC), strong basic sites (400-600
oC) and super basic sites (>600
oC) [
13]. It is commonly acknowledged that the weakly basic site was provided by the -OH group on the surface of catalysts for the formation of hydrogen bonds, the medium basic site was provided by M-O pairs, and the strong basic site was from lattice oxygen [
14]. Furthermore, considering the possible presence of acidic sites on the catalysts surface, we performed NH
3-TPD to test on these five catalysts. In
Figure 4b, Au/Mg
3Al-HT also showed the strongest NH
3 desorption signal between 400-600
oC. For Au/Mg
2Al-HT, Au/MgO, Au/ZnO and Au/La
2O
3, they all showed similar weak NH
3 signal.
According to the catalytic results, Mg
3-Al
1 hydrotalcite catalyst exhibits significantly higher CO
2 and NH
3 adsorption capacity. It is generally believed that the acidic site on the catalyst surface is conducive to the adsorption and polarization of aldehyde groups of DFF [
15], further promotes the nucleophilic attack of methanol to form hemiacetal intermediates. In present of alkaline sites, hemiacetal intermediates are more inclined to bind with Au on the catalyst surface to promote the formation of esters [
12]. Au/La
2O
3 showed a strong CO
2 desorption signal above 600
oC, but with a very weak NH
3 adsorption capacity, the yield of FDMC is only 74.6%. Au/Mg
2Al-HT, Au/MgO and Au/ZnO had similar CO
2 and NH
3 desorption patterns, but these catalysts exhibited different catalytic activities. Au/Mg
2Al-HT produced a large amount of acetal products (57.6%). Au/MgO led to a significant amount of carbon loss (34.3%). In contrast, Au/ZnO could obtain a FDMC yield of more than 80% (
Figure 3). Based on these results, the number of medium & strong alkaline sites and appropriate acidic sites had an effect on catalyst activity in oxidative esterification.
In order to further determine the correlation between the electron states of Au on the catalyst surface and the catalytic activity of the catalyst, XPS characterization were carried out on gold catalysts with those five alkaline supports, and the results were shown in
Figure 5. It was noteworthy that on the surface of several alkaline supports, the electron binding energy of the Au 4f
7/2 shifted to a lower binding energy than that of the metallic Au (84.0 eV). Au on Au/Mg
3Al-HT had the lowest Au 4f
7/2 electron binding energy (83.32 eV), followed by 83.42 eV for Au/ZnO, 83.63 eV for Au/La
2O
3, 83.78 eV for Au/MgO, and 84.05 eV for Au/Mg
2Al-HT, which was consistent with the catalytic activity of the catalyst, indicating that higher electron density is favorable for DFF oxidative esterification The stronger electron transfer between Au and the carrier makes Au
δ- more active for the activation of C-H bonds in DFF [
16], benefiting to the formation of ester.
2.3. Effect of reaction temperature
The confirmation of the catalyst with the best catalytic activity prompted us to screen for the best reaction conditions. In the oxidative reaction, the reaction temperature usually has a significant impact on the conversion rate of the substrate. Au/Mg
3Al-HT catalyst was used to catalyze the oxidative esterification of DFF with methanol at 120
oC, 140
oC and 160
oC respectively. In
Figure 6b, under 160
oC, the high reaction temperature led to the increase of aldol condensation products (88.4% for FDMC, 10.3% for DMME with trace MECA and BDM). When the reaction temperature decreased to 120
oC, the FDMC yield was 84.7%, with 8.3% FFME and 7.0% DMME. At 140
oC, the highest FDMC yield is 97.8% and only 2.2% DMME was obtained. These results indicated that overhigh reaction temperature is conducive to the improvement of the activity of acidic sites, leading to the increase of aldol condensation. The other hand, due to the limitation of reaction energy barrier, decreasing reaction temperature would lead to the increase of monoester products [
18].
We plotted the reaction time curve of DFF oxidative esterification on Au/Mg
3Al-HT catalysts, by collecting the reaction products at different reaction stages (
Figure 7). After 1 hour of reaction, the yield of FDMC is 31.1%, with 95.7% conversion of DFF. The yield of FDMC showed a slightly decrease after 3 hours. And then FDMC gradually increased with the extension of time. During the reaction, the yield of detectable by-products always maintained below 20%. After 8 hours of reaction, DMME was the only by-product, with a yield of 2.22%.