Glycerol
is a highly versatile molecule because of its three hydroxyl
groups and can be transformed to a plethora of different value-added
fine chemicals and products. It is an important byproduct in biodiesel
production and, hence, produced in high amounts, which resulted in
a high surplus flooding the market over the last decades. Thus, glycerol
is regarded as a potential platform chemical, and many research efforts
were devoted to find active catalysts to transform glycerol to various
products via different catalytic processes. The selective oxidation
reaction is one of the most promising reaction pathways to produce
valuable fine chemicals used in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.
This Review describes the recent developments in selective glycerol
oxidation to value-added products over heterogeneous catalysts. Particular
emphasis is placed not only on newly developed catalysts based on
supported noble-metal nanoparticles but also on catalysts containing
nonprecious metals. The idea of using cost-efficient non-noble metals
for glycerol oxidation is appealing from an economic point of view.
Numerous parameters can influence the catalytic performance of the
materials, which can be tuned by various synthetic approaches. The
reasons for enhancements in activity are critically examined and put
into perspective among the various studies. Moreover, during the past
decade, many research groups also reported photocatalytic and, more
scarcely, electrocatalytic pathways for glycerol oxidation, which
are also described in detail herein and have otherwise found little
attention in other reviews.