Synthesis of bis(amino)furans from biomass based 5-hydroxymethyl furfural

In this study we report a new reaction pathway in which the hydroxyl and the aldehyde groups of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural were aminated respectively. Hydroxyl group was aminated via Ritter reaction followed by direct reductive amination of aldehyde group. For the Ritter reaction of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural, mixture of trifluoromethane sulfonic acid and phosphoric anhydride showed good performance and the intermediate N-acyl-5-aminomethyl furfural with the highest yield of 89.1 wt% was obtained. Optimization of direct reductive amination of 2,5-bis(aminomethyl) furan was conducted and a yield of 45.7 wt% was achieved. This study presents a simple way for preparing bis(amino) furans from renewable biomass based 5-hydroxymethyl furfural, which enriches the biorefinery concept from biomass. (c) 2017 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.