LAUSR

Manufacturing valuable N -containing chemicals from biomass is highly desirable yet challenging. Herein, we report a novel strategy for efficient production of 2-(1-hydroxyethyl)-imidazoline (HI), a high-value and versatile building block for synthesizing a myriad of bioactive targets, directly from carbohydrates under mild reaction conditions. With this strategy, bio-based HI was produced from fructose in one step with as high as 77 C% isolated yield in the presence of ethylenediamine (EDA) and InCl 3 at 130 °C. The synergistic functions of EDA and InCl 3 were identified for the transformation, wherein EDA promoted the scission of C-C bond of fructose backbone via Retro-Aldol (R-A) reaction and rapidly trapped in-situ formed reactive carbonyl-containing C 3 intermediate for HI formation to avoid undesired side reaction, and InCl 3 facilitated the formation of this C 3 intermediate and final 1,2-hydrid shift step.