Royal Society of Chemistry, Energy & Environmental Science, 1(6), p. 92-96, 2013
DOI: 10.1039/c2ee23057g
Full text: Unavailable
Cellulose is both insoluble in water and resistant against hydrolysis. These features pose major problems for its conversion into platform chemicals. Herein, we demonstrate that mechanocatalytic, solid-state depolymerization combined with hydrogenolysis, in the presence of Ru/C in water, provides a highly efficient pathway for the production of sugar alcohols. This novel approach leads to yields of hexitols up to 94% at 150 °C in an overall process time of 4 h.