A renewable catalyst for a renewable chemical: gram scale conversion of furfural to furfuryl alcohol by carrots (Daucus carota)

Furfural (1) is one of the most promising renewable chemical derived from the lignocellulosic biomass. The number of the publications on furfural production or transformation is increasing exponentially.1 In addition, the corresponding furfuryl alcohol (2) is considered the most important chemical derived from 1 and have a broad spectrum of applications in chemical industry. The hydrogenation process to convert 1 to 2 is already established but still depends on Cu/Cr (toxic) catalysts which require high temperatures and the use of hazardous and explosive hydrogen.1 In this work, we present a very simple and environmentally friendly alternative to obtain furfuryl alcohol by bioreduction mediated by carrots (scheme 1). This presented method has been used in our group for synthetic purposes.Several parameters were investigated in order to optimize the reaction conditions. The reagent/catalyst/solvent ratio, the carrot source and the influence of the functional carbonyl group (aldehyde vs. ketone) were investigated. The preliminary results are summarized in tables 1-3.According to the table 1, the best condition was achieved with 4 g/L of 1 with 63% isolated yield. This higher concentration is also attributed to the higher solubility of 1 in water in comparison of the corresponding ketone (methyl furyl ketone). Further studies are ongoing to establish better conditions