Glucose hydrochar consists of linked phenol, furan, arene, alkyl, and ketone structures revealed by advanced solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance

The molecular structure of hydrochars produced from ¹³C-enriched glucose under various conditions has been elucidated based on advanced one- and two-dimensional (2D) ¹H-¹³C and ¹³C–¹³C solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) with spectral editing. Regardless of synthesis conditions, hydrochars consist mostly of oxygen-substituted arene rings (including diphenols) and furans connected by alkyl linkers rich in ketones. Cross-linking nonprotonated and methyne (C-H) alkyl carbons have been identified through spectrally edited 2D NMR. Alkenes and ‘quaternary’ C-O are observed only at low synthesis temperature, while some clusters of fused arene rings are generated at high temperature. Hydrochar composition is nearly independent of reaction time in the range from 1 to 5 h. Equilibration of ¹³C magnetization within 1 s shows that the materials are homogeneous on the 5-nm scale, refuting core–shell models of hydrochar microspheres. While furan C-O carbons bonded to alkyl groups or ketones show distinctive cross peaks in 2D NMR, phenolic C-OH is observed unambiguously by hydroxyl-proton selection. While methylene-linked furan rings are fairly common, the signal previously assigned to furan Cα-Cα linkages is shown to arise from abundant, stable catecholic ortho-diphenols, whose HO-C=C-OH structure is proved by 2D¹³C–¹³C NMR after hydroxyl-proton selection. Quantitative ¹³C NMR spectra of low- and high-temperature hydrochars have been matched by chemical-shift simulations for representative structural models. Mixed phenol and furan rings connected by ketones and alkyl linkers provide good fits of the experimental spectra, while literature models dominated by large clusters of fused rings and with few phenols or alkyl-linked ketones do not.