Metal regulating the highly selective synthesis of gamma-valerolactone and valeric biofuels from biomass-derived levulinic acid

Abstract Highly selective upgrade of biomass-derived source to biofuels is crucial for the utilization of biomass. Herein, we report a strategy for the highly selective conversion of biomass-derived levulinic acid (LA) to gamma-valerolactone (GVL) or valeric biofuels simply by tuning the used metal Ni or Ru on HZSM-5 support. The catalytic experimental results show that 3 wt% Ni/HZSM-5 catalyst achieves high yield (93.1%) of GVL with negligible formation of pentanoic acid (