Supporting Information Highly selective catalytic conversion of furfural to γ-butyrolactone

1.1 Catalyst preparation The supported metal catalysts were synthesized by incipient wetness impregnation using SiO2 (Alfa Aesar, 147 m2/g) or TiO2 (Xiya Reagent, 8 m2/g) as support. The monometallic catalysts were denoted as Mx/SiO2 or Mx/TiO2 (M = Pt, Pd, Rh, Ru, Ni, Co and Cu), where x was the loading in wt% of the supported metals. The precursor solutions were prepared by dissolving H2PtCl6 (Alfa Aesar, 20.0%), PdCl2 (Alfa Aesar, 59.5%), RhCl3 (Alfa Aesar, 42.0% ), RuCl3 (Alfa Aesar, 48.0%), Ni(NO3)2·6H2O (Alfa Aesar, 98%), Co(NO3)2·6H2O (Alfa Aesar, 98%) or Cu(NO3)2·2.5H2O (Alfa Aesar, 98%) in an amount of distilled water just sufficient to fill the pores of the support. The precursor solution was added to the support dropwise and then treated with ultrasound for 1 h to facilitate metal dispersion. The catalysts were dried in air at 80 oC for 10 h and calcined at 450 oC for 3 h.