Most known catalytic dehydration of sugar alcohols such as D-sorbitol and D-mannitol can only produce di-dehydrated forms as major product, but mono-dehydrated products are also useful chemicals. Moreover, both di- and mono-dehydration demand a high temperature (150°C or higher), which deserves further attentions. To improve the mono-dehydration efficiency, a series of metal-containing hydrothermal carbonaceous materials (HTC) are prepared as catalyst in this work. Characterization reveals that the composition of preparative solution has a key influence on the morphology of HTC. In transformation of D-sorbitol, all HTC catalysts show low conversions in water regardless of temperature, but much better outputs are obtained in ethanol, especially at a higher temperature. When D-mannitol is selected as substrate, moderate to high conversions are obtained in both water and ethanol. On the other hand, high mono-dehydration selectivity is obtained for both sugar alcohols by using all catalysts. The origin of mono-dehydration selectivity and role of carbon component in catalysis are discussed in association with calculations. This study provides an efficient, mild, eco-friendly, and cost-effective system for mono-dehydration of sugar alcohols, which means a lot to development in new detergents or other fine chemicals.

糖醇如D-山梨糖醇和D-甘露糖醇的最著名的催化脱水作用只能产生二脱水形式作为主要产物，但是单脱水产物也是有用的化学物质。而且，二脱水和一脱水都需要高温（150℃或更高），这值得进一步关注。为了提高单脱水效率，在这项工作中，准备了一系列含金属的水热碳质材料（HTC）作为催化剂。表征表明，制备溶液的组成对HTC的形态有关键影响。在D-山梨糖醇的转化中，所有HTC催化剂无论温度如何都表现出低的水中转化率，但是在乙醇中获得更好的输出，尤其是在较高温度下。当d-甘露醇被选作底物，在水和乙醇中均获得中到高的转化率。另一方面，通过使用所有催化剂，两种糖醇都获得了高的单脱水选择性。结合计算讨论了单脱水选择性的起源和碳组分在催化中的作用。这项研究为糖醇的单脱水提供了一种高效，温和，环保且具有成本效益的系统，这对新型洗涤剂或其他精细化学品的开发有很大的意义。