1 Continuous flow nanocatalysis: reaction pathways in the conversion of levulinic acid to valuable chemicals

The selective production of 2-methylterahydrofuran from levulinic acid has been effectively conducted using designed Cu based catalysts and compared with a commercial Pd/C system under microwave irradiation. Optimised conditions for the most active catalysts Cu-MINT (>90 % conversion, 75 % selectivity to MTHF) and Pd/C (78 % conversion, 92 % selectivity to MTHF) were further translated into a continuous flow process using the proposed catalysts to find out a deactivation of Cu-MINT under flow conditions (79 vs 13 % conversion with a switch in selectivity to products after 30 min in flow), a high stability of Pd/C (73 vs 70 % conversion at stable selectivity under analogous conditions to those of Cu-MINT) but most importantly relevant varying pathways to valuable products from levulinic acid depending on the type of catalyst employed