Sugars as Emerging Hydrogen Donors in the Synthesis of Alditol via Catalytic Transfer Hydrogenation

Abstract The utilization of biomass‐derived sugars as the emerging hydrogen donor in catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) reactions has received great attention in recent years. In this work, we proposed two CTH routes of alditol production in the aqueous solution, i. e. self‐disproportionation of sugar and cross CTH of different sugars. Both could realize the process of sugar towards alditol. Taking advantage of the differences in hydrogenation and dehydrogenation capabilities of different sugars, a high C4 alditol yield of 85.9 % was surprisingly obtained via cross CTH route using glucose as the hydrogen donor, which is much better than that obtained when using traditional hydrogen donor isopropanol. The CTH reactions using sugars as the hydrogen donor can not only reduce the utilization of fossil energy, but also provide a new pathway for the production of alditols.