BACKGROUND: The effective exploitation of biomass for the preparation of fuels and platform chemicals requires the development of novel catalysts and catalyticmethods. In this regard, ionosilicas appear as promising candidates due to their properties and tunability. RESULTS: A novel Pd@ionosilica is prepared by a straightforward ion exchange method based on amorphous ionosilica and sodium tetrachloropalladate. The resulting hybrid material is evaluated as catalyst for the continuous flow reduction of cinnamaldehyde as an exemplary biorefinery case study. CONCLUSION: This work reports the application of metal@ionosilica hybrid materials as catalysts for the continuous flow upgrade of bio-sourced molecules, showing promising results in the case of cinnamaldehyde, here used as exemplary compound. The findings disclosed in this paper provide interesting insights for the development of second generation metal@ionosilica composites for catalytic applications within biorefinery. (C) 2017 Society of Chemical Industry