Objective  Furfural can be converted to tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol by selective hydrogenation, but the loss of metal components in the commonly used copper-chromium system catalysts can cause greater environmental hazards, and the catalysts require high temperature pre-reduction before use, and the temperature and hydrogen pressure conditions during the reaction are relatively harsh. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an efficient catalyst with low preparation and use costs for the selective hydrogenation of furfural to tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol under mild condition.

  Method  In this paper, a novel NaNi/C non-precious metal catalyst was prepared by the solvothermal method for the selective hydrogenation of furfural to tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol under mild conditions, and the structure and properties of the catalyst were characterized by SEM, HRTEM, EDS, XPS, BET, and XRD to investigate the factors affecting the catalyst performance.

  Result  When 12NaNi/C was used and the mass ratio of furfural to catalyst was 28∶1, the conversion of furfural reached 99.9% and the yield of tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol reached 76.2% after 1 h reaction under mild conditions (130 ℃, 1 MPa H₂). Combined with various characterization results, we found that the addition of an appropriate amount of sodium acetate could enhance the interaction between Ni and O, increase the specific surface area of the catalyst, reduce the particle size of FCC-Ni crystals, and improve the dispersion of Ni and catalytic mass transfer efficiency; due to the change of the chemical environment of Ni and O, it made it easier for the aldehyde oxygen of furfural and the large π-bonds on the furan ring to interact with Ni, thus improving the furfural conversion efficiency.

  Conclusion  In this paper, a novel NaNi/C non-precious metal catalyst was prepared by a solvothermal method using o-vanillin as a chelating agent, which can be directly used for the efficient and selective hydrogenation of furfural under mild conditions to prepare tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol, providing a low-cost solution for the industrial production of tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol.