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Water, as an environmentally benign solvent, is a very common medium in biomass conversion. Here, we describe how water can significantly promote the ring-opening process of furfural alcohol and enhance the selectivity to 1,2pentanediol formation. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that water participates in the ring-opening process of furfural alcohol and can significantly favor the formation of 1,2-pentanediol, leading to the rapid ring opening of furfural alcohol with a high selectivity to 1,2-pentanediol (up to 65.0% from furfural over Pt/CeO 2 catalyst). Most importantly, we provide direct evidence that water participates in the ring-opening process of furfural alcohol through the H 2 18 O isotopic tracing experiments. This work gives a possibility to enhance the ring-opening process and control the selectivity of ring-opening products of furanic platform compounds in biomass valorization.

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Amines are important compounds in natural products and medicines. Specifically, cyclopentylamine is one of the value‐added chemicals widely used in the production of pesticides, cosmetics and medicines. In this work, three Ru/Nb2O5 catalysts with different Nb2O5 morphologies were used in the reductive amination of cyclopentanone under mild reaction conditions (90 °C, 2 MPa H2), among which 1 %Ru/Nb2O5−L catalyst exhibits best performance with the yield of cyclopentylamine reaching 84 %. This catalytic system is stable and has not significant deactivation even after 5 runs in the durability test. In addition, this catalyst can be extended to a series of aldehydes/ketones. Further comprehensive characterizations (XPS analysis and CO‐adsorption DRIFT) reveal that the electronic effect of Ru species can be ruled out; instead, the activity of the catalyst is strongly influenced by the geometric effect. Layered Nb2O5 material possesses the highest surface area, resulting in the highest Ru dispersion, and therefore shows the highest catalytic activity. The in‐situ DRIFT‐MS technique was also used to reveal and understand the reaction mechanism. It is found that Ru species play a key role in activating carbonyl groups. This study illustrates a promising application of Ru/Nb2O5‐Layer catalyst in the synthesis of amine and provides an understanding to the reaction mechanism.