Biomass derived efficient conversion of levulinic acid for sustainable production of γ-valerolactone over cobalt based catalyst

[Display omitted] •Facile and efficient synthesis of cobalt loaded porous catalyst.•Noble-metal free, robust, and cost-effective heterogeneous catalytic system.•Lewis and Brønsted acidic sites together with active metallic cobalt ions promote activity.•Highly coke resistant and selective production of γ-velarolactone.•Low temperature and scalable green catalytic process. Biomass feedstocks offer very promising sustainable production of fuels and chemicals as fossil fuels generate greenhouse gases and are going to become scarce. Nevertheless, establishing value addition to biomass waste to produce commodity chemicals by combining economic and environmental performances is complex. In this context, hydrogenation of biomass based levulinic acid at normal atmospheric reaction conditions using robust cobalt supported on porous heterogeneous catalyst has been studied at 200 °C in a continuous process. The systematic investigation of Lewis acidic sites and low reaction temperature contribute to achieve 99 % conversion of levulinic acid and 80 % selectivity of γ-valerolactone.