Hydrodeoxygenation of lignin derivatives over Ni-Re bimetallic catalyst supported on mesoporous carbon sphere

The design of highly active non-noble metal-based catalysts for the hydrodeoxygenation of lignin derivatives is highly desirable but challenging. Herein, an efficient mesoporous carbon sphere anchored NiRe catalyst (NiRe0.15/MCSs) was developed and realized the conversion of vanillin to 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (yield≥99%) under mild reaction conditions. Catalyst characterizations and the results of density functional theory (DFT) calculation confirmed that the addition of Re altered both geometric and electronic structures of the catalyst significantly, and the high activity of NiRe0.15/MCSs is attributed to the formation of NiRe alloy center, which promotes the H2 dissociation and adsorption of vanillin on the catalyst surface. In addition, the as prepared NiRe0.15/MCSs catalyst shows robust activity for 5 recycles and outstanding versatility for the hydrodeoxygenation of different kinds of lignin derivatives, which makes it to be a potential industrial application catalyst.