Aqueous-phase hydrogenation of biomass-derived itaconic acid to methyl-γ-butyrolactone over Pd/C catalysts: Effect of pretreatments of active carbon

•The Pd/C catalyst is efficient for itaconic acid hydrogenation.•The methyl-γ-butyrolactone yield depends on the pretreatment of active carbon.•The catalysts with carbon copretreated with HNO3 and NaClO show superior activity.•The yield of methyl-γ-butyrolactone reaches 89.5% over optimized catalyst.

The effect of active carbon pretreatment on the catalytic performance of Pd/C catalysts in the hydrogenation of itaconic acid was studied. The catalysts were prepared by deposition–precipitation and characterized by XRD, BET, NH3-TPD, TEM and FT-IR. Due to the modification of the surface functional groups, surface structure and surface acidities of active carbon via pretreatment, the Pd/C catalysts showed varied catalytic performances. High dispersion and uniform particles were conducive to the excellent activity of Pd/C catalyst with support copretreated with HNO3 and NaClO, which exhibited 89.5% selectivity towards methyl-γ-butyrolactone at 180 °C, 4 MPa H2 for 20 h.

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