γ-Valerolactone (GVL) has been identified as a key intermediate for the sustainable production of fuels and value-added chemicals. In this work, an efficient NixZryO catalyst was prepared by co-precipitation and used in the low pressure hydrogenation to prepare GVL from bio-derived methyl levulinate (ML) in aqueous solution. Several catalysts that differed in their Ni/Zr molar ratio were prepared and characterized by BET, XRD, H₂-TPR, NH₃-TPD and XPS, and they exhibited different catalytic activities in the catalytic hydrogenation reaction of ML. The best catalytic activity was realized with Ni1Zr1O, which gave a 96.9% yield of GVL by low hydrogen pressure at 0.3 MPa in the aqueous solution at 150 °C. By comparison with NiO and Raney Ni, it was found that introducing zirconium into nickel oxide remarkably enhanced the performance of the NixZryO catalysts. According to the XRD, H₂-TPR and XPS results, when a certain amount of zirconium was introduced (e.g., Ni/Zr = 1), part of the nickel either coordinated with zirconium or formed Ni_mZr_nO quasi solid solution and was not readily reduced by H₂. Theoretical calculations showed that the formed Ni − O − Zr species was superior to pure nickel or zirconium oxides for the adsorption of ML. The synergy between metallic nickel, which activated H₂, and the Ni − O − Zr species, which activated ML, was believed to expedite the production of γ-valerolactone. Moreover, Ni1Zr1O showed good catalytic stability and retained the catalytic performance even after five reaction cycles of the ML hydrogenation.

γ-戊内酯（GVL）被确定为燃料和增值化学品可持续生产的关键中间体。在这项工作中，通过共沉淀制备了一种有效的NixZryO催化剂，并用于低压加氢中，由水溶液中的生物来源的乙酰丙酸甲酯（ML）制备GVL。制备了几种Ni / Zr摩尔比不同的催化剂，并用BET，XRD，H ₂ -TPR，NH _3进行了表征。-TPD和XPS，它们在ML的催化加氢反应中表现出不同的催化活性。用Ni1Zr10O可以实现最佳的催化活性，在150°C的水溶液中，在0.3 MPa的低氢气压下，它的GVL收率为96.9％。与NiO和Raney Ni相比，发现将锆引入氧化镍中显着提高了NixZryO催化剂的性能。根据XRD，H ₂ -TPR和XPS结果，当引入一定量的锆（例如Ni / Zr = 1）时，部分镍与锆配位或形成Ni _m Zr _n O准固溶体，不容易被H ₂还原。理论计算表明，所形成的Ni-O-Zr物种对ML的吸附优于纯的镍或锆的氧化物。活化H _2的金属镍与活化ML的Ni-O-Zr物种之间的协同作用被认为可以加快γ-戊内酯的生产。而且，即使在ML加氢的五个反应循环后，Ni1Zr10O仍显示出良好的催化稳定性并保持了催化性能。