The selective hydrogenation of arenes to cyclohexanes is promoted by Ru/chitin under aqueous conditions without the loss of C–O/C–N linkages.This work was financially supported by the Ichihara International
Scholarship Foundation (to H. N.), the Institute for
Quantum Chemical Exploration (to H. N.), MEXT (Japan)
through its program “Integrated Research on Chemical Synthesis”
(to H. N.) and the Royal Society through its International
Exchange Scheme (to A. E. H. W. and H. N.). K. B. and
B. R. K. thank the UK EPSRC (EP/J500380/1). Y. M. and A. M.
acknowledge the IGER program at NU. We thank Professors
R. Noyori (NU), S. Saito (NU) and K. Shimizu (Hokkaido U)
for their helpful comments.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Royal Society of Chemistry at http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C6CY00899B
