One-pot glucose conversion to levulinic acid and γ-valerolactone without external H2 using Ru/C combined with metal chloride catalysts

Levlinic acid (LA) and its derived γ-valerolactone (GVL) are the two important biomass derived platform molecules, which showed wide application in the fields of fine chemicals, drug and liquid fuel industrials. Considering the coupling of sequential steps for glucose to LA and GVL, selective production of LA and GVL via glucose one-pot conversion in water is an open challenge. Herein, we used metal chlorides as the acidic catalyst for glucose conversion to LA, obtaining the high yield of 77.8 C-mol% over SnCl 4 . Moreover, using the SnCl 4 and Ru/C as the combined catalyst, glucose or cellulose could be converted to GVL with the high yield of 60.1 or 57.9 C-mol% in the case of in situ hydrogenation by formic acid (the by-products during LA formation) decomposition. The formation of LA was responsible for the cooperative effect of BAS (Bronsted acid sites) and LAS (Lewis acid sites) of SnCl 4 for accelerating glucose isomerization, fructose dehydration followed by 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) rehydration, while the GVL production is relative to the highly efficient formic acid decomposition to H 2 followed by LA hydrogenation to GVL over Ru/C. This study provided an avenue for facile and highly efficient conversion of biomass and the derivatives to LA and GVL using commercial catalysts.