Clues to a Pd/C catalyst’s efficiency can be found on its surface: Identification of an efficient catalyst for the global hydrogenolysis of ether protecting groups

We report insights into our observations of the wide variability in quality of palladium catalyst from different suppliers, finding the fundamental differences can be rationalized through a combination of XRD, XPS, and TEM analysis, offering the possibility to predict a catalysts performance prior to the use of valuable synthetic material and save time consuming efforts to identify high quality palladium on carbon catalysts. The synthetic glycan accessed in this study will allow further steps towards the development of semisynthetic vaccines against cryptococcal infections.