A high 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) yield of 53 mol% was obtained by direct degradation of cellulose in a biphasic system with concentrated NaHSO₄ and ZnSO₄ as co-catalysts, with 96% of cellulose conversion in 60 min. The high concentration of catalysts in the aqueous solution and the high volume ratio of organic phase to aqueous phase were responsible for the excellent performance. The depolymerization of cellulose is the rate-determine step, and the formed glucose could be efficiently converted by concentrated catalysts in the aqueous solution, leading to low concentration of glucose in the solution and thus suppressing the side reactions such as humin and char formation.

Pyrolysis is considered the most promising way to convert biomass to fuels. Upgrading biomass pyrolysis oil is essential to produce high quality hydrocarbon fuels. Upgrading technologies have been developed for decades, and this review focuses on the hydrodeoxygenation (HDO). In order to declare the need for upgrading, properties of pyrolysis oil are firstly analyzed, and potential analysis methods including some novel methods are proposed. The high oxygen content of bio-oil leads to its undesirable properties, such as chemical instability and a strong tendency to re-polymerize. Acidity, low heating value, high viscosity and water content are not conductive to making bio-oils useful as fuels. Therefore, fast pyrolysis oils should be refined before producing deoxygenated products. After the analysis of pyrolysis oil, the HDO process is reviewed in detail. The HDO of model compounds including phenolics monomers, dimers, furans, carboxylic acids and carbohydrates is summarized to obtain sufficient information in understanding HDO reaction networks and mechanisms. Meanwhile, investigations of model compounds also make sense for screening and designing HDO catalysts. Then, we review the HDO of actual pyrolysis oil with different methods including two-stage treatment, co-feeding solvents and in-situ hydrogenation. The relative merits of each method are also expounded. Finally, HDO catalysts are reviewed in order of time. After the summarization of petroleum derived sulfured catalysts and noble metal catalysts, transitional metal carbide, nitride and phosphide materials are summarized as the new trend for their low cost and high stability. After major progress is reviewed, main problems are summarized and possible solutions are raised.

Catalytic hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of vegetable oils to renewable alkane-type biofuels has attracted more and more concern in recent years. However, the presently used catalysts were mainly focused on the sulfided CoMo and NiMo catalysts, which inevitably posed sulfur contamination in final products. Therefore, exploring nonsulfured catalyst for this processing is of fundamental importance, but it is still an open challenge. In this paper, we prepared the sulfur free Ni supported on SiO₂, γ-Al₂O₃, SAPO-11, HZSM-5, and HY by incipient wetness impregnation and tested the catalytic performance in HDO of methyl palmitate. Alkanes with long carbon chains were mainly produced with two possibly parallel approaches: hydrogenation of hexadecanal to hexadecanol, followed by dehydration/hydrogenation to C₁₆ alkane and decarbonylaton/decarboxylation of hexadecanoic acid to C₁₅ alkane. The acidity of catalysts significantly influenced their catalytic performance, and the Ni/SAPO-11 catalysts with weak and medium acidity showed superior properties to the other catalysts due to the synergistic effect of metal Ni and acidic support. The maximum yield of 93% for C₁₅₊ alkanes was observed over 7 wt % Ni/SAPO-11 under the mild reaction conditions of 493 K and 2 MPa, indicating its promising application in this reaction.