Continuous production of furfural from pulp prehydrolysate in a vaporization reactor

The continuous production of furfural using vaporization reactor as a continuous stirred tank reactor is reported in this study. 50 g L⁻¹ xylose solution was continuous fed into the reactor and catalyzed by 2 wt% H₂SO₄ at 433 K gave 82.3% average yield of furfural in 10 h of reaction time. Pulp prehydrolysate derives from prehydrolysis of wood biomass was further used as the raw material for the reaction, and the 78.6% average yield of furfural was achieved for 10 h. According to Aspen Plus simulation, 11.7 tons of saturated steam was required for the production of one ton of furfural under the present reaction system, which is almost half of the traditional one-step method.