Highly dispersed Pd anchored on heteropolyacid modified ZrO2 for high efficient hydrodeoxygenation of lignin-derivatives

Production of biofuels and value-added chemicals from renewable biomass is a strategy with great promise to replace petrochemicals. Herein, we developed an efficient method to fabricate highly dispersed Pd anchoring on phosphotungstic acid (PTA)-modified ZrO2. The optimized metal-acid bifunctional catalyst, Pd-PTA/ZrO2, dis-played excellent catalytic performance for the hydrodeoxygenation of lignin-derivatives under mild conditions. High conversion of vanillin and high selectivity of 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol can be achieved at 80 C for 90 min under 1 atm H-2, which overcame most of the reported catalysts. The outstanding catalytic activity can be attributed to the large surface area, moderate acid strength, the synergetic effect of the active metal and ZrO2 support. This study provides a feasible route to prepare highly dispersed catalysts with superior catalytic per-formance for bio-fuel upgrading.