ABSTRACT Anthraquinone, a pivotal chemical intermediate for dyes, H 2 O 2 , and pharmaceuticals, holds significant value in the differentiated utilization of coal resources. In this report, we present an innovative two‐step hydrogenation‐oxidation strategy for its synthesis from coal‐derived anthracene. The strategy first employs Pt/6MoO x /Al 2 O 3 for selective hydrogenation to 9,10‐dihydroanthracene (82.7% selectivity at 96.6% conversion), where Mo species modulate the electronic state of Pt and optimize acid sites. Subsequently, RuO x ‐Ce 0.7 Zr 0.3 O 2 , enriched with oxygen vacancies and Ru‐O‐M sites, selectively oxidizes the intermediate to anthraquinone with 90% yield. Thereby, a cost‐effective route from abundant coal resources is established, offering key insights into catalyst design and process optimization for coal valorization.
Ma et al. (Sat,) studied this question.