Green CO2-Assisted Synthesis of Mono- and Bimetallic Pd/Pt Nanoparticles on Porous Carbon Fabricated from Sorghum for Highly Selective Hydrogenation of Furfural

The green utilization of biomass waste and its eco-friendly conversion into biofuels and value-added chemicals play a crucial role in resolving energy demand and environmental pollution. Herein, we report a win–win strategy to utilize biomass waste to fabricate functional materials and then transform biomass-derived source into valuable products. We developed a one-step strategy using the green solvent CO2 deposition method to spatially confine monometallic Pd and Pt and bimetallic Pd–Pt nanoparticles in a porous carbon fabricated from biomass waste sorghum at a very low temperature of 40–70 °C. The synthesized monometallic Pd and Pt and bimetallic Pd–Pt nanoparticles display superior performance in the selective conversion of biomass-based furfural into fine chemicals, furfuryl alcohol and tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol. With only 3 wt % Pd or 3 wt % Pt supported on the synthesized porous carbon, these catalysts are far superior to the commercial 5 wt % Pd or Pt on carbon support, respectively. The turnover ...