Biomass has the potential to serve as a sustainable source of energy and organic carbon for our industrialized society. The focus of this Review is to present an overview of chemical catalytic transformations of biomass-derived oxygenated feedstocks (primarily sugars and sugar-alcohols) in the liquid phase to value-added chemicals and fuels, with specific examples emphasizing the development of...

Quatermetallic alloy nanoparticles of Ni/Ru/Pt/Au were prepared and found to promote the catalytic transfer hydrogenation of non-activated alkenes bearing conjugating units (e.g., 4-phenyl-1-butene) with 2-propanol, where the composition metals, Ni, Ru, Pt, and Au, act cooperatively to provide significant catalytic ability.

Catalytic hydrogenation of carboxylic acid esters is essential for the green production of pharmaceuticals, fragrances, and fine chemicals. Herein, we report the efficient hydrogenation of esters with manganese catalysts based on simple bidentate aminophosphine ligands. Monoligated Mn PN complexes are particularly active for the conversion of esters into the corresponding alcohols at Mn concent...

Within the realm of catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation, the focus continues to be on the use of chiral metal complexes in conjunction with a hydrogen source. Recently, the widespread development of organocatalysis, including the invention of iminium activation, has led to the discovery of many new enantioselective transformations. Based on this strategy, a number of bioinspired processes for th...

The catalytic activity of iridium-mediated transfer hydrogenation is readily tuned by electronic variation of the ligated tetraaryl-N-heterocyclic carbene and the installation of electron donating groups on the N-aryl substituents is more important than on the C-aryl substituents for effecting catalytic enhancement.

A novel pentacoordinate mono iron dicarbonyl complex bearing a nitrogen heterocyclic carbene ligand was reported as a model of a [Fe]-hydrogenase active site, which exhibits interesting proton coupled CO binding reactivity, electro-catalytic proton reduction and catalytic transfer hydrogenation reactivity.

Unsupported thiolate-capped palladium nanoparticle catalysts are found to be highly substrate-selective for alkene hydrogenation and isomerization. Steric and poisoning effects from thiolate ligands on the nanoparticle surface control reactivity and selectivity by influencing alkene adsorption and directing either di-σ or mono-σ bond formation. The presence of overlapping p orbitals and α proto...