Furfural – a versatile, biomass-derived platform chemical for the production of renewable chemicals

Abstract

For years, fossil fuels have been the predominant feedstock for the production of chemicals, resulting in their overexploitation and widespread environmental degradation, prompting a search for alternative feedstocks. In this...

Iron(III)-Light-Induced Homolysis: A Dual Photocatalytic Approach for the Hydroacylation of Alkenes Using Acyl Radicals via Direct HAT from Aldehydes

“…Moreover, the acylated products 3t−3x through coupling with acrylate, acrylamide (3t), vinyl ketone (3u), vinyl lactone (3v), vinyl phosphonate (3w), and vinyl sulfone (3x) were readily obtained. Due to growing interest in functionalizing feedstock chemicals obtained from renewable resources to produce value-added materials, 33 we applied the methodology to glutaconic acid and itaconic acid to obtain the hydroacylated products 3y and 3z. Also, 2-furanone and exo-methylene-γ-butyrolactone, being prominent moieties in natural products and drugs, underwent hydroacylation with good yields (3v and 3aa).…”

Metal-free, atom and redox-economical construction of C–C bonds enabled by oligofluorene-containing hypercrosslinked polymers

“…As shown in Scheme 3, a wide range of electron-deficient alkenes containing aromatic moieties with varied electronic and steric properties (4- MeOC 6 H 4 , 4-MeC 6 H 4 , 4-t BuC 6 H 4 , 4-OHC 6 H 4 , 4-PhC 6 H 4 , 4-FC 6 H 4 , 4-BrC 6 H 4 , 4-CF 3 C 6 H 4 , 2-MeC 6 H 4 , 2,4-diMeC 6 H 3 ) were well tolerated in this protocol, and the corres- ponding addition products 3a-3x could be delivered in moderate to excellent yields (55-93%) under standard conditions. Similarly, the heterocyclic furyl-based alkene that formed between commercially available furfural 18 and malononitrile proceeded smoothly in this reaction, leading to the desired product 3s with an important furan function retained in 55% yield. On the other hand, a variety of aniline derivatives uniformly underwent C(sp 3 )-H activation and subsequent aminoalkyl conjugate addition, producing γ-amino nitriles with complete selectivity.…”

Hydrodeoxygenation of potential platform chemicals derived from biomass to fuels and chemicals

“…One of the major strategies for the utilization of such C5 platform chemicals relies on furfural and its derivatives. [7][8][9][10][11] In the petrochemical industry, a variety of C6 aliphatic and aromatic chemicals are produced mainly via benzene. Because of the importance of many C6 compounds in the chemical industry, biomass-derived platform chemicals for C6 compounds should be diverse with respect to functionality and feedstock, and we propose several new C6 platform chemicals.…”