Intercalative construction of Cu/W/Ni3Al-MMO hierarchical catalysts for the efficient catalytic conversion of cellulose to ethylene glycol

In recent years, developing highly active non-noble metal catalysts for biomass hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) to achieve value-added conversion has attracted significant attention. However, major challenges remain in catalyst efficiency, stability, and the precise control of reaction pathways.In this study, a synergistic Ni-W-Cu mixed metal oxide (MMO) catalyst was prepared from LDH precursors via a stepwise "ion exchange-active site introduction" strategy. Under optimized conditions (240 ℃, 2.5 MPa H 2 , 2.5 h), the catalyst achieved complete cellulose conversion with 72% ethylene glycol selectivity. Even after five reuse cycles, it retained 95.4% conversion and 62% selectivity. Characterization demonstrated that appropriate Cu loading promoted Ni-Cu alloying and modulated Ni electronic structure, which induced abundant W 6 + /W 4+ species and oxygen vacancies (O V ). In this architecture, W 6+ provides Lewis acidity, while W 4+ couples tightly with O V , thereby synergistically enhancing the catalyst's hydrogenation capability and bond-cleavage ability. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the strong interaction between W and Cu constructs highly efficient adsorption sites, enabling the precise catalysis of C-O bond scission. These findings suggest that tailoring the W-Cu interplay offers a viable strategy for directing product selectivity. By engineering a stable, multifunctional catalyst for biomass conversion, this study provides a new strategy for constructing high-performance HDO catalysts.