LAUSR

Abstract Mesoporous Ni/NiO catalyst was synthesized using an organosilane as a mesopore template. This is a simple and low-cost green method to synthesize mesoporous Ni/NiO catalyst for hydrogenation of glucose to sorbitol. The synthesized catalyst was characterized by N2 sorption, XRD, SEM, TEM, SQUID, and XPS techniques. The hydrogenation reactions were performed over the synthesized Ni/NiO catalyst in the temperature range of 100–150 °C and 50 bar pressure. The conversion of glucose was 95%, and sorbitol yield was 84 wt% best obtained at 130 °C. The turn over frequency calculated for glucose conversion over Ni/NiO is 0.20 s−1 at 130 °C. The kinetic study shows that glucose hydrogenation follows pseudo-first-order kinetic concerning glucose concentration. The activation energy calculated over the synthesized Ni/NiO catalyst was 16 kJ mol−1, 4 times lower than that over Raney nickel catalyst.