Dataset of furfural reductive amination with aniline on bifunctional Pd/ZrO₂–TiO₂ catalysts: Materials Characterization and Performance

Furfural (FUR) is one of the main platform molecules derived from lignocellulosic biomass, and, due to its versatility, it can be transformed into high-value chemicals such as secondary amines. Among the available routes, reductive amination is considered an environmentally attractive pathway for the production of these compounds. However, this transformation still faces challenges related to selectivity, particularly because of the competition between imine hydrogenation and undesired hydrogenation of the aromatic ring or other functional groups. In this context, the use of bifunctional metal–acid catalysts and the variation of reaction conditions are key variables for understanding catalytic behavior.
This dataset reports the use of Pd/ZrO₂–TiO₂ catalysts with different acidic properties for the reductive amination of furfural with aniline. It includes catalyst characterization data obtained by N₂ physisorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), H₂ temperature-programmed reduction (H₂-TPR), NH₃ temperature-programmed desorption (NH₃-TPD), pyridine adsorption infrared spectroscopy (IR-Pyr), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and scanning transmission electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (STEM-EDX). These data provide information on textural properties, crystalline structure, reducibility, acidity, surface chemical state, particle size, and elemental distribution. Moreover, it includes raw data files from the reaction systems and .XLS files containing conversion, selectivity, and yield calculations for experiments in batch and AT-FTIR operando systems.
The catalytic data were collected by varying the initial furfural concentration (0.125–0.5 mol L⁻¹), initial aniline concentration (0.125–0.5 mol L⁻¹), H₂ pressure (0.5–2 bar), and temperature (50–100 °C). In addition, support-composition effects were evaluated under nominal conditions of 3 bar H₂, 100 °C, and C₀,FUR = C₀,ANI = 0.5 mol L⁻¹ using subtrate/catalyst ratio = 212. The repository is organized into three main folders:
1. Catalyst characterization
2. Catalytic performance
3. Catalyst recycling test