Paper Title
Development of Furfural Production Process using Reactive Distillation

Abstract
Furfural is a commercial, poisonous, and flammable chemical substance. Furfural can be produced from hydrolysis in an acidic environment. The main raw materials for producing furfural are lignocellulosic biomass such as bagasse, corncob, and rice straw. In this study, we produced furfural from hydrolysate by reactive distillation using 2% w/w of sulfuric acid as a catalyst. The ratio of hydrolysate-butanol is 2:1, reaction temperature at 100 °C, and reaction time at 3 hours led to 40.52% furfural yield, 100% xylose conversion. By using n-butanol as a solvent in the reactive distillation system, n-butanol has a lower boiling point (~117.7 °C) than furfural (~162 °C) and evaporated along with water. So, the solvent cannot be stored at the source (Round bottom flask), which may cause low furfural yield. Therefore, it is necessary to use an alternative solvent with a higher boiling point than furfural to prevent the solvent from evaporation Keywords - Xylose, Bagasse, Furfural, Reactive distillation.