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Engineering reverse H-spillover on Ru single-atom sites for selective upgrading of lignin-oil to aviation fuel precursors.

Created on 29 Aug 2026

Authors

Jinpeng Wei, Yonggang Sun, Wenjin Shi, Yuyu Wang, Yulong Ma, Zhengping Hao

Published in

Science bulletin. Aug 17, 2026. Epub Aug 17, 2026.

Abstract

Lignin-oil remains the last untapped carbon reservoir in biomass refineries because its dense aryl-O-aryl networks resist selective C-O cleavage. The key to this transformation lies in the selective deoxygenation of its oxygen-containing groups and the selective scission of bonds between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; whether the surface can return H* to metal centres to trigger cracking is unknown. Here we elucidate a reverse H-spillover pathway on Ru single-atom catalysts (Ru1/WZrOx) that enables C-O cleavage of crude lignin-oil directly to produce value-added aviation fuel precursors, boosting the hydrodeoxygenation efficiency by 40%. Surprisingly, a remarkable substrate conversion of 100% and selectivity of 100% to produce cycloalcohols are achieved, while delivering an impressive 80.7% selectivity toward C-O cleavage from lignin-oil. Detailed spectroscopy, isotope experiments and density functional theory analysis disclose that sp3-hybridized W centres in defective WZrOx nanolattices chemically push electron-rich hydrides back to Ru single-atoms, while micro-kinetics of dual-supplied H* system identify a 0.09 eV barrier for arene-O hydrogenolysis inside a Ru-hydride, leading to highly active lignin-oil hydrocracking. This study is expected to provide deep insights into boosting efficient lignin-oil depolymerization via modulating the surface active sites of the catalyst, for converting lignin-oil into hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for aviation fuel.

PMID:
42665501
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 29 Aug 2026.

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