Selective hydroxymethylation of furfuryl alcohol with aqueous formaldehyde in the presence of dealuminated mordenites Original Research Article

Hydroxymethylation of furfuryl alcohol with aqueous formaldehyde, yielding selectively 2,5-bis(hydroxymethyl)furan, has been carried out in the presence of various dealuminated H-form mordenites. The best results expressed in terms of both selectivity (≥95%) and conversion (≥70%) are obtained over H-MOR 100 catalyst (0.25 g) using a furfuryl alcohol/formaldehyde molar ratio of 0.009 after short reaction times (≤30 min) and at low temperatures (313–327 K).