We report a highly efficient bifunctional catalyst, Pd/SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr), consisting of Pd nanoparticles immobilized on a mesoporous sulfonic acid-functionalized metal-organic framework SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr), which exhibits high catalytic performance in promoting biomass refining. The use of SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr) as a support renders highly dispersed Pd nanoparticles with uniform size distribution, sufficient reactants contact in aqueous media, and rapid activation of the reactants induced by the Brønsted acid coordination sites (sulfonic acid groups from SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr)). Thus, the 2.0 wt.% Pd/SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr) catalyst exhibits novel synergy in the hydrodeoxygenation of vanillin (a typical model compound of lignin) at low H 2 pressure under mild conditions in aqueous media. Excellent catalytic results (100% conversion of vanillin with exclusive selectivity for the 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol product) could be achieved, and no loss of catalytic activity and selectivity were observed after seven recycles in succession.13 achieved over the 2.0 wt.% Pd/SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr) catalyst including a 100% conversion of vanillin with a 100% selectivity for the 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol product within 120 min (entry 3 in Table 1). While in the presence of 2.0 wt.% Pd/MIL-101(Cr) catalyst, a rather low catalytic activity and selectivity were obtained when the reaction was carried out at the same conditions (entry 4). This is probably due to the lower acid strength of the MIL-101(Cr) as compared to that of the SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr) support. Over the pure support SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr) or MIL-101(Cr), however, no reaction took place, implying that Pd nanoparticles are inevitable for the vanillin hydrodeoxygenation (entries 1 and 2). Moreover, the 2.0 wt.% Pd/SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr) catalyst was also compared with the commercially available Pd/C catalyst under the same conditions. The textural properties of the 2.0 wt.% Pd/C are shown in Table S1. The loading amounts of Pd within the Pd/SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr), Pd/MIL-101(Cr) and Pd/C catalysts, determined by the ICP-AES analysis, were found to be 1.98 wt.%, 1.99 wt.% and 2.01 wt.%, respectively, very close to the nominal amount of 2.0 wt.%. The results (entry 5 in Table 1) clearly show that the 2.0 wt.% Pd/SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr) catalyst gives significantly higher activity and 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol selectivity as compared to the Pd/C catalyst. It should be noted that the selectivity for 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol over the prepared 2.0 wt.% Pd/SO 3 H-MIL-101 catalyst is also significantly higher than that reported by Xiao et al [25] over 4.5 wt.% Pd/MSMF under the same reaction conditions with a similar conversion of vanillin (entry 6). The high selectivity over the 2.0 wt.% Pd/SO 3 H-MIL-101(Cr) catalyst is probably due to the readily accessible Brønsted acidic sites distributed throughout the framework as well as an abundance of mesoporous cages of MIL-101(Cr) thus, greatly facilitating the transfer of substrates [46,47].