Available online at website: https://journal.bcrec.id/index.php/bcrec

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 21 (1) 2026, 1-10
Original Research Article

One Pot Synthesis of N-acetylglycine from N-acetyl Glucosamine
over Bifunctional Ag/MgO
Dianwen Qi1, Qingya Cao*1,2, Chenxi Huang1, Xueying Qi1, Chongzhou Wang1, Jinhang Dai*1
1School of Environment and Resources, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067,

P. R. China
2Chongqing Sanxia Paints Company Limited, Chongqing 402284, P. R. China.

Received: 6th September 2025; Revised: 26th October 2025; Accepted: 27th October 2025
Available online: 2th November 2025; Published regularly: April 2026

Abstract
The catalytic conversion of chitin biomass provides an environment-friendly approach for the synthesis of valuable
organonitrogen compounds. Here, we prepared bifunctional Ag/MgO by simple deposition-precipitation method. The
catalysts exhibited good catalytic activity for one pot synthesis of N-acetylglycine (AcGly) from N-acetyl glucosamine
(NAG), offering a 26.2% yield under optimized conditions. The basic nature of MgO contributed to the retro-aldol of
NAG, and Ag species catalyzed the oxidation of intermediate to AcGly. The spent catalyst could be recycled and reused
for NAG conversion to AcGly.
Copyright © 2026 by Authors, Published by BCREC Publishing Group. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).

Keywords: Chitin; N-acetylglycine; Bifunctional; Retro-aldol; Oxidation
How to Cite: Qi, D., Cao, Q., Huang, C., Qi, X., Wang, C., Dai, J. (2026). One Pot Synthesis of N-acetylglycine from
N-acetyl Glucosamine over Bifunctional Ag/MgO. Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 21 (1), 1-10.
(doi: 10.9767/bcrec.20482)
Permalink/DOI: https://doi.org/10.9767/bcrec.20482

1. Introduction
Currently, fossil resources are playing
significant roles in most fields such as
transportation, materials, chemistry industry,
and so on. Nevertheless, fossil resources are
limited and non-renewable. It is of significance to
find renewable and abundant resource to replace
fossil resources. The biomass has been regarded
as the best candidate. Lignin, cellulose,
hemicellulose, and chitin are typical bio-polymers
that can be used for producing chemicals and fuels
[1-8]. Among them, chitin is special because it
contains bio-fixed nitrogen. A significant concept
of “Shell biorefinery” has been proposed, which
promoted investigations on chitin biomass
(referring to chitin and its derivatives) utilization
[9-13].
Typically, the conversion of chitin biomass is
a novel strategy to produce nitrogen-containing
* Corresponding Author.
Email: caoqingya1125@163.com (Q. Cao);
jinhangdai@ctbu.edu.cn (J. Dai)

chemicals, which avoids the use of additional
nitrogen source (i.e., ammonia gas, a compound
produced via energy-intensive process). The
hydrolysis of chitin or chitosan produces
oligosaccharides or monosaccharides [14-16], such
as N-acetyl glucosamine (NAG) and glucosamine.
The dehydration of NAG offers 3-acetamido-5acetylfuran (3A5AF) [17-21], a furan-derived
platform compound. A few valuable chemicals
have been produced from 3A5AF [22-25].
Moreover, some amino acids [26-29] and amino
alcohols [30] can be prepared by simple oxidation
and reduction of
NAG or glucosamine,
respectively.
Precise cleavage of C-C bond in chitin biomass
provides opportunity to prepare small nitrogencontaining chemicals [29,31]. For example,
Fukuoka and coworkers [29] reported the
synthesis of N-acetylmonoethanolamine (NMEA)
from NAG by successive retro-aldol and
hydrogenation over Ru/C and NaHCO3 in H2.

bcrec_20482_2025 Copyright © 2026, ISSN 1978-2993; CODEN: BCRECO

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 21 (1), 2026, 2
After changing H2 to O2, NMEA could be
transformed into N-acetylglycine (AcGly) by
oxidation, as shown in Figure 1a. AcGly is a useful
amino acid derivative and can be applied in the
fields of medicine [32,33], catalysis [34,35], and
optical materials [36]. Fukuoka’s work proposed a
new strategy for green synthesis of AcGly,
avoiding the use of toxic reactants such as
hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde in traditional
methods. However, the low overall yield of 6% is
unsatisfactory. To improve AcGly yield, our group
[27] tried the oxidation of NMEA by O2 using
Fe(NO3)3.9H2O, TEMPO and KCl, and a 63% of
AcGly yield was obtained. And one pot synthesis
of AcGly from NAG via successive retro-aldol and
oxidation was achieved, in which Ag2O and MgO
acted as oxidation and retro-aldol catalysts,
respectively. A boosted yield of 29.4% was
obtained [37], as shown in Figure 1b.
To reduce the dosage of expensive noble Ag is
of significance. The dispersion of active Ag species
on appropriate supports is a simple and useful
strategy. Here, we prepared bifunctional Ag/MgO
for one pot synthesis of AcGly from NAG. A 26.2%
yield was obtained under optimized conditions, as
shown in Figure 1c. And the spent catalysts could
be recycled and reused.

(AR, light), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), ZrO 2
(99.99%), TiO2 (99.8%), magnesium aluminum
hydrotalcite (HT, 95%), -Al2O3 (99.99%), and
anhydrous ethanol (99.9%) were purchased from
Shanghai Titan Technology Company. Glycollic
acid (GA, 99%), NAG (99%), formic acid (FA, 99%),
acetic acid (AA, 99%), acetamide (AcNH 2, 98%)
and AcGly (99%) were purchased from Adamasbeta (Shanghai, China). N-acetyl glucosaminic
acid (NAGA) was prepared according to the
literature [29]. All the chemicals were used
without purification.
2.2. Catalyst Preparation
Several supported Ag catalysts were prepared
by deposition-precipitation method. Taking
Ag/MgO as an example, the typical preparation
procedure is as follow. A desired amount of AgNO3
solution (0.1009 mol/L) was added into 10 mL
deionized water to form uniform solution A. Then
PVA solution (10 mg/mL, 20 mL) and MgO
suspension (0.5 g MgO, 20 mL deionized water)
were mixed evenly to obtain stable suspension B.
Under stirring, solution A was slowly added to
suspension B drop by drop. After the addition, the
mixture was stirred at room temperature for 1 h,
followed by ultrasonic processing in an ice bath for
1 h. A Na2CO3 solution (n(Na2CO3) = 2n (AgNO3),
4 mL) was slowly added, and the mixture was
stirred for 3 h at room temperature, aged for 1h
and filtered. The solids were washed sequentially
with 1 L of deionized water and 200 mL of
absolute ethanol, then dried at 80 oC for 6 h. It was
calcined in a muffle furnace at 550 oC for 2 h, with

2. Materials and Methods
2.1 Materials
AgNO3 (0.1009 mol/L) was purchased from
Beijing Coastal Hongmeng Standard Material
Technology Company. Na2CO3 (99.95%), MgO
(a)Fukuoka's two-step method
O

OHHN
HO

NaHCO3
Retro-aldol

O HO

Ru/C，H2
Hydrogenation

OH OH O
NAG

N
H
NMEA

O HO

NaHCO3
Ru/C
O2
Oxidation

N
H
AcGly

O

Overall yield=6%

•Risky
•Tedious
•Low selectivity

(b)Our one-step method over combination catalysts
O

OHHN
HO
OH OH O
NAG

O HO

MgO
Retro-aldol

N
H
AcGly

Ag2O，O2
Oxidation

O

•Simple procedure
•Boosted selectivity

Overall yield=29.4%

(c)Our one-step method over bifunctional catalyst

OHHN
HO
OH OH O
NAG

O HO

O
AgOx/MgO, O2
Retro-aldol
Oxidation

N
H
AcGly

O

•Simple procedure
•Reduced Ag dosage

Overall yield=26.2%

Figure 1. The synthesis of AcGly from NAG.
Copyright © 2026, ISSN 1978-2993

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 21 (1), 2026, 3
a heating rate of 5 oC /min. The as-prepared
catalysts were denoted as Ag/support-X-Y. X
represents theoretical loading (X%), while Y
means preparation temperature, respectively.

at a flow rate of 0.6 mL⋅min-1 was used as the
mobile phase. NAG conversion and product yields
were determined based on external standard
curves.

2.3. Characterization Methods

3. Results and Discussion

Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns were
recorded on a Shimadzu XRD-6100 diffractometer
equipped with a Cu-Kα radiation source operating
at 60 kV and 80 mA. Scans were performed over a
2θ range of 3° to 80° at a rate of 4°s-1. The X-ray
photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements
were conducted on a Thermo Scientific K-Alpha
spectrometer using monochromatic Al Kα
radiation (15 kV, 15 mA) to analyze the
composition of Ag species. All binding energies
were referenced to the adventitious C 1s peak at
284.8 eV. The actual loading of Ag was detected by
inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometer
(ICP, SPECTRO GENESIS), based on the
standard curve of AgNO3. Transmission electron
microscope (TEM) pictures were collected on FEITalos F200S instrument.

3.1. Effect of Support
The effect of support type was investigated
firstly. The acidic-basic properties have
significant influence on AcGly formation. Both
acid and base can catalyze retro- aldol reactions,
but oxidation reaction usually requires basic
medium. Therefore, basic supports might be
favorable for our target reaction. Based on
experimental results, the use of basic MgO and
HT gave highest yields of AcGly (Table 1, entry 12), which supported our hypothesis. Trace AcGly
(0.7%) was detected using Ag/Al2O3-6-450, maybe
because that neutral Al2O3 bears no adequate
acidic or basic sites. For comparison, additional
basic MgO was added, resulting in a 12.5% yield
of AcGly (Table 1, entry 5). The remarkable effect
of
MgO
confirmed
that
NAG-AcGly
transformation requires both retro-aldol and
oxidation sites. The addition of MgO also
enhanced the formation of GA and NAGA,
implying that basic sites promote retro-aldol and
oxidation reactions. No AcGly was detected when
acidic supports (TiO2 and ZrO2) were used (Table
1, entry 6 and 8). Likewise, the addition of MgO
also enhanced the transformation of NAG to
AcGly (Table 1, entry 7 and 9), suggesting that
MgO with alkalinity is an appropriate support.

2.4. Catalytic Activity Test and Product Analysis
The catalytic transformation of NAG to AcGly
was carried out in an autoclave equipped with a
stirrer. Typically, NAG (66.3 mg, 0.3 mmol),
catalyst (5 mg), and water (5 mL) were added into
the reactor. Pressurized O2 (typically 0.3 MPa)
was introduced into the reactor subsequently.
Then the reactor was placed in an oil bath. After
a desired time, the reaction was quenched by cold
water and O2 was released. Reaction liquid was
collected by filtration, and used for HPLC
analysis. The spent catalyst was washed with
water, dried at 80 oC for 6 h, and used for stability
testing.
The quantitative analysis of reactant and
products was performed employing HPLC
(Agilent 1260). The HPLC was equipped with an
Aminex HPX- 87H Column (300×7.8 mm, 50 ◦C)
and a PDA detector, where a 5 mM H2SO4 solution

3.2. Effect of Calcination Temperature
Then the effect of calcination temperature
(250-650 oC) of Ag/MgO-6-Y catalysts was studied,
and the results were shown in Figure 2. With the
increase of temperature from 250 oC to 550 oC,
AcGly yield increased from 10.5% to 14.7%,
accompanying the slight increase of NAG
conversion from 75.4% to 84.1%. After further

Table 1. The effect of support type on NAG conversion to AcGly. a ; aReaction conditions: 0.3 mmol NAG,
5 mg catalyst, 5 mL H2O，0.3 MPa O2，130 ℃，2 h; bAdding 5 mg MgO
Entry

Catalyst

Conversion (%)

1
2
3b
4
5b
6
7b
8
9b

Ag/MgO-6-450
Ag/HT-6-450
Ag/HT-6-450
Ag/Al2O3-6-450
Ag/Al2O3-6-450
Ag/TiO2-6-450
Ag/TiO2-6-450
Ag/ZrO2-6-450
Ag/ZrO2-6-450

79.4
59.2
75.5
22.5
75.3
22.7
92.2
32.0
90.4

AcGly
13.6
7.6
14.5
0.7
12.5
0
16.4
0
14.0

Copyright © 2026, ISSN 1978-2993

Yield (%)
GA
4.4
3.9
1.4
0
0.9
0
5.8
0
6.5

NAGA
3.6
5.2
1.1
0
0.7
0
0.9
0
0.7

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 21 (1), 2026, 4
increasing temperature to 650 oC, AcGly yield was
14.9%, which was comparable to that using
Ag/MgO-6-550. These results indicated that
preparation temperature could affect catalytic
activity. Ag/MgO-6-Y catalysts were further
characterized by XPS, as shown in Figure 3 and
Table 2. High temperatures could promote the
reduction of Ag species, leading to the decrease of
Ag+/Ag0 ratio. This can be explained by the
decomposition of AgNO3 or Ag2O at high
temperatures. After the temperature increases
from 550 oC to 650 oC, the Ag+/Ag0 ratio increased,
which can be explained by the re-oxidation of Ag
at high temperature [38]. Possibly due to the
cooperative roles of Ag+ and Ag0, the change of
Ag+/Ag0 ratio to a suitable range contributed to the
boosted yield of AcGly. XRD results (Figure 4)
revealed the existence of MgO and Mg(OH) 2 in
fresh Ag/MgO-6-250. The peaks belonging to
Mg(OH)2 disappeared after increasing preparing
temperature. Therefore, basic MgO and Mg(OH) 2
can be converted into each other under certain
conditions.
3.3. Effect of Ag Loading
Ag/MgO-X-550 catalysts with different Ag
loading (2-10%) were prepared. The XRD patterns
were employed to study catalyst structure. As
100

Yield of products (%)

80

AcNH2(%)
GA(%)
AA(%)
FA(%)
AcGly(%)
Selectivity(%)
Conversion(%)

60

40

60

40

20

20

0

80

150

250

350

450

550

650

Conversion & Selectivity (%)

80

0

calcination temperature (℃)

Figure 2. Influence of calcination temperature on
catalytic conversion of NAG to AcGly. Reaction
conditions：5 mg Ag/MgO-6-Y catalyst，0.3 mmol
NAG，5 mL H2O，0.3 MPa O2，130 ℃，2 h.

shown in Figure 5, the peaks centered at 2θ =
38.2°, 44.2°, 64.5°, 77.5° were corresponding to
(111), (200), (220) and (311) crystal planes of
typical monoclinic Ag structure. With the increase
of Ag loading, the intensity of the peaks
(2θ=38.2°,44.2°, 64.5°and 77.5°) belonging to Ag
(111), (200), (220) and (311) increased
significantly, and these peaks became sharper,
possibly resulting from the aggregation of Ag at
higher loading. ICP results revealed that higher
theoretical loading led to higher actual loading, as
shown in Table 3.
The catalytic performance was tested and the
results were shown in Figure 6. Comparable
conversions of NAG (83.3-86.6%) were obtained,
suggesting that Ag loading has no profound
influence on NAG conversion. In consistent with
these results, we also found that increasing Ag 2O
amount could not promote the conversion in our
previous study [37]. Therefore, both pure Ag2O
and supported Ag species could not catalyze NAG
conversion alone. Maybe because the retro-aldol,
oxidation or other reactions of NAG require basic
medium. Ag loading has obvious effect on AcGly
yield. When theoretical Ag loading was fixed as
2%, only 3.2% yield of AcGly was achieved,
possibly due to lack of sufficient active Ag sites.
The increase of Ag loading to 4% significantly
enhanced AcGly formation, resulting in a 12.7%
yield. Slight increase of AcGly yield was obtained
by using larger amount of Ag loading. A highest
AcGly yield of 16.5% was obtained over Ag/MgO8-550.
The
Ag/MgO-8-550
catalyst
was
characterized by TEM, as shown in Figure 7. The
average size of Ag particle is about 100 nm. The

Table 3. ICP analysis of Ag/MgO-X-550 catalysts.
Theoretical loading of Ag
(%)
2
4
6
8
10

Actual loading of Ag
(%)
1.6
1.7
1.8
2.0
3.1

Table 2. Binding energies of Ag0 and Ag+ and the ratio of Ag+/Ag0 from XPS spectra.
Catalyst
Ag/MgO-6-150
Ag/MgO-6-250
Ag/MgO-6-350
Ag/MgO-6-450
Ag/MgO-6-550
Ag/MgO-6-650

Ag3d 3/2
Ag0 (eV)
374.82
374.59
374.51
374.65
374.74
374.35

Ag+ (eV)
373.98
374.05
373.73
374.25
373.7
373.9

Ag3d 5/2
Ag0 (eV)
Ag+ (eV)
371.19
368.02
371.51
368.06
371.41
367.77
371.60
368.31
371.13
367.17
371.34
367.91

Copyright © 2026, ISSN 1978-2993

Ag+/Ag0
4.43
4.39
2.85
0.99
0.39
3.2

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 21 (1), 2026, 5

Intensity (a.u.)

Ag(311)
MgO(222)

Ag(220)

Mg(OH)2(110)

MgO(220)

MgO(200)

Mg(OH)2(102)

650℃

Ag(200)

Ag(111)

Mg(OH)2(003)

Figure 3. XPS spectra of Ag/MgO-6-Y catalysts.

550℃
450℃
350℃
250℃
150 ℃

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

2θ (degree)

Figure 4. XRD patterns of Ag/MgO-6-Y catalysts.
100

Yield of products (%)

80

80

AcNH2(%)
GA(%)
AA(%)
FA(%)

60

AcGly(%)
Conversion(%)
Selectivity(%)

60

40

40

20

20

0

2

4

6

8

10

Conversion & Selectivity (%)

100

Figure 5. XRD patterns of Ag/MgO-X-550 catalysts.

0

Ag (%)

Figure 6. Effect of Ag loading on catalytic conversion
of NAG to AcGly. Reaction conditions：5 mg Ag/MgOX-550 catalyst，0.3 mmol NAG，5 mL H2O，0.3 MPa
O2，130 ℃，2 h.

Figure 7. TEM image of Ag/MgO-8-550.

Copyright © 2026, ISSN 1978-2993

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 21 (1), 2026, 6
relatively large size might associate with the
limited surface area of MgO.
3.4. Effect of Reaction Temperature
The reaction conditions for one pot conversion
of NAG to AcGly were meticulously studied. As
shown in Figure 8a, reaction temperature has
obvious effect. When reaction was conducted at
low temperatures, both NAG conversion and
AcGly yield were low. For example, only 35.7%
conversion of NAG and 3.3% yield of AcGly were
obtained at 80 oC for 2 h, and the selectivity of
AcGly was 9.9%. A trace amount of NAGA (0.5%)
was detected, implying the occurrence of direct
oxidation of NAG. With the increase of
temperature, NAG conversion monotonically
increased. Meanwhile, AcGly yield increased
firstly and the maximum yield of 16.5% was
obtained at 130 oC. Higher temperature than 130
oC led to slight decrease of AcGly yield, maybe
because of instability of AcGly at high
temperature. High temperature favored the
formation of FA, AA, AcNH2 and GA, probably
because oxidation reactions were enhanced at
high temperature. Interestingly, when reaction
temperature was 130-150 oC, no NAGA was
detected, which is consistent with previous study
employing MgO and Ag2O, implying that NAGA
was not stable [37].

3.5. The Influence of Oxygen Pressure
NAG-AcGly transformation involves C-C
cleavage and oxidation reaction. The effect of
oxidant (O2 pressure) was investigated, and the
results were shown in Figure 8b. When O 2
pressure increased from 0.2 MPa to 0.3 MPa,
AcGly yield increased from 12.6% to 16.2%.
Further increasing O2 pressure led to slight
decrease of AcGly. 12.7% yield of AcGly was
obtained at 1.0 MPa O2, and NAG conversion also
decreased slightly to 78.2%. Therefore, high O2
pressure is not required in our system.
3.6. The Impact of Catalyst Dosage
The effect of catalyst dosage was studied. As
shown in Figure 8c, in presence of 2.5 mg catalyst,
69.5% NAG conversion and only 9.7% AcGly yield
were obtained, indicating that no enough active
sites were provided. The addition of 5 mg catalyst
afforded boosted NAG conversion (83.8%) and
AcGly yield (16.2%). By further increasing
catalyst amount to 10 mg, slight increase of NAG
conversion and comparable AcGly yield were
obtained. Too much catalyst led to slight decrease
of AcGly yield. Excess active sites might cause
some base-catalyzed or Ag-catalyzed side
reactions. Thus, the yields of several side

Figure 8. The effect of (a) reaction temperature, (b) O2 pressure, (c) catalyst dosage, and (d) reaction time
on NAG conversion. Reaction conditions: 0.3 mmol of NAG, 5 mL of H 2O. (a) 5 mg of Ag/MgO-8-550
catalyst, 0.3 MPa O2, 2 h; (b) 130 °C, 2 h, 5 mg of Ag/MgO-8-550 catalyst; (c) 130 °C, 2 h, 0.3 MPa O2; (d)
5 mg of Ag/MgO-8-550 catalyst, 2 h, 0.3 MPa O2.
Copyright © 2026, ISSN 1978-2993

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 21 (1), 2026, 7

Then we screened AcGly production as a
function of time using 5 mg catalyst, as shown in
Figure 8d. After reaction for 10 min, 30.6% NAG
has been converted, but the yield of AcGly was as
low as 1.4%. The selectivity of AcGly was 4.5%.
Meanwhile, trace amount of FA, AA and NAGA
was detected in yields of 0.1%, 0.8% and 0.3%,
respectively. NAG conversion increased to 51.4%
for 0.5 h, while AcGly yield was 7.6%. The
selectivity of AcGly significantly increased to
14.5%. A highest 16.2% yield of AcGly with 19.3%
selectivity was obtained for 2 h. As proposed in our
previous study, NAGA was a possible
intermediate during AcGly formation [37]. In the
early stage (reaction time ≤1 h), trace amount of
NAGA (0.3-0.6%) was detected. When reaction
time was prolonged from 1 h to 2 h, NAGA
disappeared, which can be explained by the
conversion of NAGA to AcGly and other products.
Long reaction time favored the generation of AA,
AcNH2 and GA.
3.8. Effect of NAG Concentration
The effect of NAG concentration was
investigated (Figure 9). Generally, there is a
seesaw relationship between NAG concentration
and AcGly selectivity. When NAG concentration
was fixed as 0.06 mol/L, a 16.2% AcGly yield and
an 83.8% conversion were obtained by optimizing
catalyst preparation parameters and reaction
parameters. The increase of NAG concentration
from 0.06 mol/L to 0.12 mol/L led to sharp

40

100

32

80
AcGly(%)
FA(%)
AA(%)
GA(%)

24

AcNH2(%)
Conversion(%)
Selectivity(%)

60

16

40

8

20

0

0.01

0.03

0.06

0.09

0.12

Conversion & Selecyivity (%)

3.7. Effect of Reaction Time

decrease of AcGly yield from 16.2% to 8.6%, which
can be explained by insufficient active sites. On
the other hand, when NAG concentration
decreased from 0.06 mol/L to 0.01 mol/L, a highest
26.2% AcGly yield with 96.1% conversion was
obtained. As shown in Table 4, some typical
results about AcGly production from NAG were
summarized. The obtained AcGly yield using
Ag/MgO was comparable to that over MgO and
Ag2O [37], and much higher than that employing
Ru/C and NaHCO3 in a two-step procedure [29].
Meanwhile, the dosage of noble meta reduced
significantly compared to MgO-Ag2O system , as
supported by higher TOF value.

Yield of products (%)

products, including AA, AcNH2 and GA, increased
after increasing catalyst amount.

0

c (mol/L)

Figure 9. Effect of NAG concentration on NAG
conversion to AcGly. Reaction conditions: 5 mg
Ag/MgO-8-550 catalyst, 5 mL H2O, 130 ℃, 2 h,
0.3 MPa O2.

Table 4. Catalytic conversion of NAG to AcGly. (TOF: Turn over Frequency)
Conversion
(%)
st
1 step:
>99.0%; 2nd
step: 97%.

AcGly
yield (%)
1st step:
29%;
2nd step:
21%;
Overall
yield: 6%.

TOF
(h-1)
1st
step:
5.8;
2nd
step:
4.2.

0.05 mmol NAG, 0.5 mmol
MgO, 0.05 mmol Ag2O, 5 mL
H2O, 0.3 MPa O2, 130 oC, 2 h.

99.0%

29.4%

0.15

37

0.05mmol NAG, 20 mg
Ag/MgO-8-550, 5 mL H2O, 0.3
MPa O2, 130 oC, 2 h.

96.1%

26.2%

1.7

This
work

Entry

Catalysts

Reaction conditions

1

5%Ru/C +
NaHCO3

1st step：2 mmol NAG, 200 mg

2

MgO+Ag2O

3

Ag/MgO-8-550

Ru/C, 2 mmol NaHCO3, 40 mL
H2O, 4 MPa H2, 120 oC, 1 h.
Temperature was increased to
120 oC at p(H2) of 0.1 MPa, and
p(H2) was then increased to 4
MPa.
2nd step：2 mmol NMEA, 200
mg Ru/C, 2 mmol NaHCO3, 40
mL H2O, 1 MPa O2, 120 oC, 1 h.

Copyright © 2026, ISSN 1978-2993

Ref.
29

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 21 (1), 2026, 8
3.9. Catalyst Stability
Last but not least, the stability of the catalyst
under reaction conditions was investigated
(Figure 10). After 3 catalytic runs, NAG
conversion has no obvious changes and remained
at about 80%, while AcGly yield gradually
decreased to 11.2%. There are two possible
reasons for deactivation. Firstly, there is
inevitable mass loss of catalyst during recycling
experiment. Secondly, XRD results of spent
catalyst indicated that the structure of MgO was
destroyed during reaction, possibly due to acidic
products like AcGly. These results implied that
partially
recyclable
bi-functional
Ag/MgO
catalysts were successfully prepared. Future
efforts should focus on elucidating the cause of the
observed decline in AcGly yield and developing
strategies to enhance the catalyst's long-term
stability for further improvements.
4. Conclusion
To reduce the dosage of precious metal Ag,
supported catalysts were prepared by simple
deposition-precipitation method. The alkaline
supports of Ag catalysts favored one pot
conversion of NAG to AcGly without requiring
other additives. In contrast, the use of acidic or
neutral supports requires additional base
catalysts. Ag/MgO exhibited best activity for
AcGly formation. By altering the preparation
temperature, the ratio of Ag+/Ag0 can be adjusted.
And the activity of Ag0 was found to be higher
than Ag+. The yield of AcGly decreased slightly
after 3 catalytic runs. An AcGly yield of 26.2% was
obtained under optimized conditions (5 mL 0.01
mol/L NAG aqueous solution, 5 mg Ag/MgO-8-550,

130 ℃, 2 h, 0.3 MPa O2). This yield was
comparable to that using Ag2O and MgO.
Meanwhile, the dosage of Ag reduced remarkably.
Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the
support of the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (22408032), the Science and
Technology Research Program of Chongqing
Municipal
Education
Commission
(KJQN202200844), and the Chongqing College
Students' Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Training Program (S202411799022).
CRedit Author Statement
Author Contributions: D. Qi: investigation,
formal analysis, writing original draft; Q. Cao:
investigation, formal analysis, writing original
draft and revising manuscript; C. Huang:
investigation,
formal
analysis;
X.
Qi:
investigation, formal analysis; C. Wang:
investigation; J. Dai: conceptualization, project
administration, funding acquisition & editing.
The authors have read and agreed to the
published version of the manuscript.
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