ABSTRACT Biomass‐derived levulinic acid and furfural are promising alternatives to traditional fossil‐fuel‐based raw materials for applications such as biofuels, biosolvents, resins, and bioplastics. In this work, we present the synthesis and characterization of highly reactive compounds that have been reported previously but remain unexplored in biomass valorization: diphosphine cobalt (I) complexes of the type (diphosphine)CoPPh 3 Cl. These complexes are closely related to reported copper (I) and palladium (II) complexes, which have been successfully used in levulinic acid hydrogenation under impressive reaction conditions. These complexes were synthesized using commercially available, low‐cost precursors and feature bidentate ligands with different bite angles and electronic and steric parameters. We applied these cobalt complexes in the direct hydrogenation of levulinic acid and furfural to produce selectively gamma‐valerolactone (total conversion at 120°C and H 2 300 psi, 99% yield) and tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (total conversion at 100°C and H 2 300 psi, 98% yield), respectively, using relatively mild reaction conditions, among the mildest for nonnoble metals systems and through the in situ formation of cobalt nanoparticles which allows a high dispersion and TOFs of 41.7 for both system at its respective optimal conditions.
Cabrera et al. (2026) studied this question.