DOI: https://doi.org/10.9767/bcrec.20724

Effect of SiO2, ZrO2, and SiO2-ZrO2 Supports on Product Distribution in Glucose Hydrogenolysis over Cu-Ni-WOx Catalysts

1Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Brawijaya University, Jl. Veteran, Malang, East Java, Indonesia

2Synthesis and Catalysis of Natural Product Research Group, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Brawijaya University Jl. Veteran, Malang, East Java, Indonesia

Received: 2 May 2026; Revised: 16 Jul 2026; Accepted: 17 Jul 2026; Available online: 22 Jul 2026; Published: 26 Dec 2026.
Editor(s): Dmitry Yu. Murzin
Open Access Copyright (c) 2026 by Authors, Published by BCREC Publishing Group
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Abstract

Biomass-derived glucose is an important platform molecule to produce value-added oxygenated chemicals through catalytic conversion. In this study, Cu-Ni-WOx catalysts supported on SiO2, ZrO2, and SiO2-ZrO2 were prepared by wet impregnation and evaluated for the hydrogenolysis of glucose in water. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction, SEM-EDX, and pyridine-adsorption FTIR to examine the relationship between catalyst structure, acidity, and catalytic behavior. Catalytic tests were carried out in a batch reactor at 300 °C under 2 MPa H2 for 2 h. All catalysts showed comparable glucose conversion in the range of 92.2-93.1%, whereas the support strongly influenced the distribution of liquid products. The SiO2-supported catalyst favored glycol/glycol-like compounds and cyclic ether/THF products, indicating a stronger tendency toward oxygen-retaining pathways. In contrast, the SiO2-ZrO2-supported catalyst showed higher distribution toward cyclic ketones and aliphatic alcohols, while the ZrO2-supported catalyst exhibited an intermediate pattern. These findings suggest that support-dependent acidity plays an important role in directing hydrogenolysis pathways and controlling the relative formation of oxygen-retaining and rearranged products. This work highlights the importance of support composition in tuning the product distribution of Cu-Ni-WOx catalysts for glucose valorization into value-added oxygenates. Copyright © 2026 by Authors, Published by BCREC Publishing Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).

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Keywords: Cu-Ni-WOx catalyst; metal oxide support; glucose hydrogenolysis; aliphatic alcohol; cyclic ether; glycol-like compounds
Funding: Ministry of Higher Education, Indonesia under contract Magister Thesis Research Grant (PTM) No. 00309.92/UN10.A0501/B/PT.01.03.2/2024; Brawijaya University under contract No. 07629.32/UN10.F0901/B/PT/2025

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