Facile Preparation of Oxygen-Vacancy-Mediated Mn3O4 for Catalytic Transfer Hydrogenation of Furfural

The conversion of biobased furfural (FF) into furfuryl alcohol (FA) has immense industrial significance; however, the catalyst preparation methods for the conversion of FF to FA are demanding. We demonstrated a facile method, direct calcination of manganese(II) acetate tetrahydrate, to prepare an oxygen-vacant Mn 3 O 4 catalyst for the catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) of FF to FA. The characterization results of oxygen-vacant Mn 3 O 4 along with commercial and conventional Mn 3 O 4 indicate that surface oxygen vacancies, strong acid–base properties, and a porous structure facilitate the high yield of FA (>99%) obtained from FF at 220 °C for 4 h in isopropanol. The oxygen vacancy-mediated Mn 3 O 4 could be reused five times without noticeable activity loss. Moreover, we confirmed that Mn 3 O 4 obtained from various manganese(II) salts by the direct calcination method also exhibited good performance for the CTH of FF to FA.