Effective Production of Sorbitol and Mannitol from Sugars Catalyzed by Ni Nanoparticles Supported onAluminium Hydroxide

Effective production of hexitols (sorbitol and mannitol) was achieved from sugars by means of nickel nano-particles supported on aluminium hydroxide (NiNPs/AlOH) catalyst. NiNPs/AlOH catalyst was prepared by a simple and benign environmentally procedure using less amount of sodium hydroxide. ICP-AES and XRD analyses confirmed that the NiNPs/AlOH catalysts comprised a large amount of remained aluminium hy-droxide (i.e. bayerite and gibbsite). The presence of aluminium hydroxide caused a high dispersion Ni metal species. The average Ni crystallite sizes that derived from the Scherrer`s equation for former R-Ni and NiNPs/AlOH were 8.6 nm and 4.1 nm, respectively. The catalyst exhibited high activity and selectivity both hydrogenolysis of disaccharides (sucrose and cellobiose) and monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, and xylose) at 403 K for 24 h. The NiNPs/AlOH catalyst was found to be reusable for at least five consecutive runs without any significant loss of activity and selectivity.