(377k) Successful Recovery and Concentration of 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural from Aqueous Solutions Onto Various Polymeric Adsorbent with Different Functional Groups

5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) is a high value-added platform chemical that can be obtained from glucose, fructose, and directly biomass via chemical catalysis technology or biorefinery. Although a great deal of research about 5-HMF has been published in the past decade, the effective separation and purification of 5-HMF is still a drawback for its sustainable utilization for producing other high value-added chemicals on a commercial scale. In order to address the drawback, chromatographic adsorption separation technology has received more attention for the selective liquid adsorption of 5-HMF from aqueous solution or actual biomass hydrolysate in recent years.

Here, we investigate the separation behavior of glucose, 5-HMF and its follow-up products LA and FA from aqueous solutions onto various polymeric adsorbent with different functional groups (XAD-4, XAD7HP and XAD761 resins). The result showed that XAD761 resin exhibit highest selectivity and capacity for 5-HMF. The maximum adsorption capacity of 5-HMF onto XAD761 was 92.2 mg g^-1 wet resin at 288 K. The adsorption equilibrium was better fitted by the Freundlich isotherm model at the studied range of 5-HMF concentrations. The adsorption process of XAD761 resin for 5-HMF was the spontaneous and exothermic, and the activation energy suggested physical nature of the adsorption process. The kinetic regression results showed that the kinetic data of 5-HMF was accurately followed by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. In conclusion, the present adsorption studies of 5-HMF onto XAD761 resin revealed the potential of phenol-formaldehyde resin with hydroxy group to be applied as an adsorbent for aldehydes organic compounds.