Abstract

The dehydration of fructose to selectively produce 5-HMF was catalytically developed in a new type of ionic liquids based on triazoles supported on alumina (Al2O3). The synthesis of triazoles by 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition allows for creating a tailor-made triazole, that was eventually used to design catalysts based on triazolium-based ionic liquids. In this work, four catalysts based on triazolium-ionic liquids supported on Al2O3 were synthesized to produce 5-HMF from fructose in DMSO as the reaction solvent. According to their molecular structure, the catalysts were tagged as TR2/Al2O3, TR2-HSO4/Al2O3, TR2/Al2O3, and TR2-HSO4/Al2O3.