There are severalestablished approaches for the reductive fractionation of lignocellulose (e.g.," catalytic upstream biorefining" and "lignin-first"approaches) that lead to alignin oil product that is composed primarily of dihydro-p-monolignols [e.g., 4-(3-hydroxypropyl)-2-methoxyphenol and 4-(3-hydroxypropyl)-2,6-dimethoxyphenol].A lthough effective catalytic methods have been developed to perform reductive or deoxygenative processeso nt he lignin oil, the influence of the 3-hydroxypropyls ubstituent on catalysta ctivity hasp reviously been overlooked. Herein, to better understand the reactivity of the depolymerized lignin oil obtained from catalytic upstream biorefiningp rocesses, dihydro-p-coumaryl alcohol was selected as am odel compound. Hydrogenation of this speciesi nt he presence of Raney Ni with molecular hydrogen led to ring saturation (100 %s electivity) in the absence of hydrodeoxygenation, whereas under hydrogen-transfer conditions with 2-propanol, hydrogenation occurred ( % 55 %s electivity) simultaneously with hydrodeoxygenation ( % 40 %s electivity). In ab roader context,t his study sheds light not only on the reactivity of dihydro-p-monolignols but also on the intricacies of the catalytic upstream biorefiningr eaction network in which these species are revealed to be key intermediates in the formation of lessfunctionalized p-alkylphenols.Undoubtedly,l ignin constitutest he primary renewable source of bulk and specialty aromatic chemicals.[1] Recently,s everal catalytic routes have been developed to convert lignocellulosic biomass into am ixture of compounds that show potential to replacep etroleum-basedr aw materials.[2] In this context,t he emerging field of "catalytic upstream biorefining" (CUB, sometimes referred to as "reductive fractionation" or the "ligninfirst" approach) has attracted increasinga ttention.[1a, 3] CUB encompasses processes for plant biomass deconstruction through the early-stage catalytic conversion of lignin (ECCL) by the action of ah ydrogenation catalyst.[1a] In our CUB process, on the basis of the ECCL by hydrogen-transfer( H-transfer) reactions catalyzed by Raney Ni, the lignin fractioni si solated as av iscous oil.[4] This lignin stream is rich in monophenolic species (< 65 %). Notably,t he type of functionalg roups on the propyls ide chain of the monophenolic compounds depends on both the selected catalysta nd the hydrogen source employed in the process. [4a, 5] Furthermore, the lignin oil also contains dimers and low-molecular-weight lignin oligomers (M w < 1000 Da) as minor products (> 35 %). Amid the monophenolic products obtained by H-transfer CUB in the presence of Raney Ni, two major products,d ihydro-p-sinapyl alcohol (1, Figure 1) and dihydro-p-coniferyl alcohol (2,F igure 1), are obtained from the biorefining of hardwoods. Understandably,t he CUB of (G-lignin-enriched) softwoods generates 2 as the major product.Products 1 and 2 incorporate three classes of oxygenated functional group, namely,the phenolic OH substituent, the methoxy group(s) ortho to the ph...