A catalytic process for the production of the polar aprotic solvent diformylxylose using supported heteropoly acids

Abstract: Diformylxylose (DFX) has been proven to be a good green alternative for fossil based polar aprotic solvents. It possesses similar performance to commercial Solvents (DMSO, DMF, NMP) in hydrogenation or cross coupling reactions, and due to its chemical properties DFX can be characterized as a green solvent. In this paper we show how DFX can be produced in a catalytical way by using immobilized heteropoly acids as solid catalysts. We demonstrate the catalyst development and compare it with commercially available solid acid catalysts. Further we applied the new designed catalyst in the acetalization of xylose with paraformaldehyde where we achieved DFX yields of up to 70%. The catalyst can be easily separated from the reaction by filtration and shows good reusability over 4 runs, with constant activity and high DFX yields.