Ordered coupling of aqueous ethanol to sustainable aviation fuel by molecular fence effect of superhydrophobic catalyst

Abstract Directly upgrading renewable aqueous ethanol to higher branched alcohols (HAs) is an attractive route for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production, but efficient carbon chain propagation towards C 8 –C 18 carbon distribution remains challenging. Here, we report a novel superhydrophobic NiSb‐PDVB catalyst that leverages the synergistic benefits of interfacial tracking catalysis and molecular fence effect to enhance the selective adsorption of HAs. The optimized NiSb‐PDVB catalyst achieves a state‐of‐the‐art C 8 –C 18 HAs selectivity of 75.2% at 99.3% ethanol conversion. This breakthrough represents a significant advance in the realization of efficient carbon‐chain propagation from direct ethanol coupling. Mechanistic studies reveal that the hydrophobic PDVB component facilitates carbon chain propagation via a C n + C 2 ordered model, efficiently producing C 8 –C 18 HAs while suppressing rapid ethanol self‐condensation by a molecular fence effect. The resulting HAs directly yield SAF alkanes upon dehydration and hydrogenation, gaining new insights for efficient carbon chain propagation in ethanol to SAF.