Cellobiose is a glucose dimer connected by a glycosidic bond and represents the basic repeating unit of cellulose, and it could be efficiently converted into polyols in the presence of hydrogen and precious-metal catalyst of Ru/C over extremely low phosphotungstic acid which is environmentally friendly and reduces the requirement for equipments. Then, processing parameters and the reaction performance were studied in detail, the yields of ethylene glycol (EG) and 1,2-propylene glycol (1,2-PG) were obtained up to 33.4% and 12.2% respectively at 240 °C for 1 h, which had a definite guidance function for catalytic conversion cellulose.Besides, the catalytic process using cellobiose was studied to propose the possible reaction pathways of producing polyols .
