Paniagua, MartaMorales, GabrielMelero, Juan AntonioIglesias, JoseLópez-Aguado, ClaraVidal, NoraMariscal, RafaelLópez-Granados, ManuelMartínez-Salazar, Irene2025-01-202025-01-202021-04-07Catalysis Today 367 (2021) 228–238.https://hdl.handle.net/10115/59458The Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the Regional Government of Madrid are kindly acknowledged for funding this research through the projects RTI2018-094918-B-C42, RTI2018-094918-B-C41, S2018/EMT-4344, and PEJD-2019-PRE_IND-15918. Clara López-Aguado acknowledges a FPI grant (BES-2015-072709) from the Government of Spain.The direct one-pot transformation of glucose into γ-valerolactone (GVL) can be accomplished by means of a cascade of reactions in which Brønsted acid-catalyzed transformations are combined with catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) by using 2-propanol as sacrificial alcohol, avoiding the use of high-pressure hydrogen. Catalysts containing Zr Lewis acid sites have been successfully applied in CTH reactions while the acid-driven transformations can be preferentially promoted by Brønsted Al-related acidity. Here, we present the combination of Zr and Al as active sites within a BEA zeolite structure as catalyst, with the possibility of adjusting the Al/ Zr ratio from ∞ (commercial H-Beta) to 0 (aluminium-free Zr-Beta), which show a scale of Brønsted/Lewis acid sites ratios. The Al/Zr ratio has a strong impact on the products distribution. As the Zr content increases, higher amount of GVL is obtained, leading to a maximum over the catalyst with high amount of Zr and low content of Al acid sites (Al/Zr = 0.2). An increase of reaction temperature, as well as reaction time, allows an enhancement of yields towards the desired products, leading to a maximum yield towards GVL of 24 mol% over Zr-Al-Beta (2.0), and a maximum yield towards isopropyl lactate of 26 mol% over Zr-Beta at 190 ◦C.enAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ZirconiumBeta zeoliteBifunctional catalystCascade reactionGamma-valerolactoneArticlehttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.cattod.2020.04.025info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess