BACKGROUND
Ordinary clay is a natural material with bulk volume that can potentially be used as a low‐cost support material for a catalyst after activation.
RESULTS
In this study, ordinary clay was pretreated with NaOH and used as the support of a nickel catalyst. The treatment of the clay with NaOH significantly increased the mesopores, remarkably promoting the dispersion of Ni and enhancing the thermal stability of nickel by increasing the interaction of nickel with the support. In addition, the activation of the clay with NaOH created abundant alkaline sites and, correspondingly, reduced the acid sites on the catalyst surface.
CONCLUSION
The presence of the alkaline sites suppressed the acetalization and etherification in the conversion of either furfural or vanillin in ethanol, making hydrogenation the dominant reaction route. The alkaline sites with an electron‐rich nature also suppressed the further hydrogenation of the furan ring in furfuryl alcohol with ethanol as the reaction medium. The nickel catalyst with the untreated clay as support did not have such an effect and the abundant acidic sites made the acetalization/etherification the competitive reactions of hydrogenation. The acidic/basic properties of the Ni/clay before and after the pretreatment with NaOH significantly impacted the reaction network in the hydrogenation reactions. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).