Production of 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) from corn cobs

5-hydroxymethylfurfural, HMF, is an intermediate widely used in chemical industrial sectors to produce chemicals such as Levulinic acid, 2,5-furandicarboxilic, 2,5-diformylfuran and dihydroxymethylfuran (Zhou, et al., 2021). HMF is also an initiator in producing 2,5-Dimethylfuran, DMF, used as a synthetic fuel that yields higher energy density than alcohols.

Generally, HMF is produced by dehydration reaction of fructose and glucose which can cause problems in food supply chain when using food crops as a source of sugars. This research aims to produce HMF from domestically available agricultural waste such as corn cobs which contain high content of hemicellulose and cellulose, leading to the high content of fructose and glucose, and consequently the high yield of HMF production. Not only the selection of raw materials that draw attention to the production of HMF but also other parameters starting from the pretreatment in the process of delignification, the hydrolysis and the dehydration reaction does have effects onto obtaining the high yeild of HMF production. It is reported that HMF production from corn cobs can achieve 62 % yield, recently.