Abstract

Sustainable catalysis is the key for the future progress toward biorefinery and bioeconomy. In this work, we designed and developed an inexpensive and eco-friendly Ni@C catalyst for selective hydrogenation of biomass-based platform molecules. A facile synthesized Ni nanoparticles encapsulated in a stabilized carbon support derived from a sacrificial agent copolymer-gel was investigated in the hydrogenation of furfural (FA) to tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (THFOL) and levulinic acid (LA) to γ-valeralactone (GVL). The aim is to study the two different reactions over a highly stabilized Ni nanoparticles embedded in the carbon matrix. The Ni@C was found to be active and selective in multi-catalyzed hydrogenation reactions. The Ni nanoparticles with small and ultra-fine sizes are highly dispersed over the carbon matrix. This was concluded through high-resolution micrography images (SEM, TEM) and XRD patterns. In both reactions, a complete conversion of furfural and levulinic acid was achieved with maximum selectivity over the Ni@C catalyst. The effect of reaction temperature, solvent type, reaction time, and H₂ pressure were also studied. Overall, optimized reaction conditions were determined, and the Ni@C is easily reusable and exceptionally durable in the studied reaction cycles. The apparent activation energies for FA hydrogenation to THFOL and LA hydrogenation to GVL are 15.4 kJ/mol and 33.6 kJ/mol, respectively.