Selective hydrogenation of glucose to sorbitol with tannic acid-based porous carbon sphere supported Ni-Ru bimetallic catalysts

Ni-Ru bimetallic porous carbon sphere (Ni-Ru@PCS) catalysts were synthesized via formaldehyde-assisted, metal-coordinated crosslinking sol-gel chemistry, in which biomass-derived tannic acid and F127 surfactant were used as carbon precursor and soft template, respectively, and Ni2+ and Ru3+ were used as cross-linkers. In the developed method, Ni-Ru particles became uniformly dispersed in the carbon skeleton due to strong coordination bonds between metal ions (Ni2+ and Ru3+) and tannic acid molecules and bimetal interactions. The as-synthesized Ni- Ru10:1@PCS catalyst with a loading Ni:Ru mole ratio of 10:1 was applied for the selective hydrogenation of glucose to sorbitol, and provided 99% glucose conversion with a sorbitol selectivity of 100% at 140 degrees C in 150 min reaction time and exhibited good stability and recyclability in which sorbitol yield remained at 98% after 4 cycles with little or no metal agglomeration. The catalyst was applied to glucose solutions as high as 20 wt% with 97% sorbitol yields being obtained at 140 degrees C in 20 h. The developed bimetallic porous carbon sphere catalysts take advantage of sustainably-derived materials in their structure and are applicable to related biomass conversion reactions.(c) 2022 Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).