Room-Temperature Asymmetric Transfer Hydrogenation of Biomass-Derived Levulinic Acid to Optically Pure γ-Valerolactone Using a Ruthenium Catalyst.

This study presents a first report on ruthenium-catalyzed asymmetric transfer hydrogenation (ATH) of levulinic acid (LA) to chiral γ-valerolactone (GVL). ATH of LA has been explored with Noyori's chiral catalyst (Ru-TsDPEN) in methanol solvent. Efficacy of ATH reaction of LA was investigated under different reactions conditions such as temperature, catalyst, and hydrogen donor concentration.