The green platform molecule gamma-valerolactone – ecotoxicity, biodegradability, solvent properties, and potential applications

Abstract

Since many decades, gamma-valerolactone (GVL) is known to be an excellent solvent, which, today, can be made of sustainable materials. Although numerous publications praise it as very green and versatile,...

Fully bio-based cellulose nanofiber/epoxy composites with both sustainable production and selective matrix deconstruction towards infinite fiber recycling systems

“…35,[40][41][42] The environmental and health concerns with these solvents, 49 suggests the need for a greener acetalization procedure. We therefore performed acetalization of vanillin with pentaerythritol at room temperature using a biomass-derived solvent -g-valerolactone (GVL) 43 and using a heterogeneous acid catalyst -Amberlyst 15 (ESI, Table S1 †). Vanillin and pentaerythritol are both commercially produced from biomass.…”

Biocatalysis in ionic liquids: state-of-the-union

“…14 Various mono-and bi-phasic solvent systems have been proposed as alternatives for volatile organic solvents with undesirable ecological properties. 15,16,17 These include, for example, solvents derived from renewable raw materials, such as bio-ethanol, 18 2-methyltetrahydrofuran, 19 γ-valerolactone (GVL) 20 and cyrene (dihydrolevoglucosenon), 21,22 glycerol, 23 and glycerol derivatives such as glycerol carbonate. 24 Interestingly, lipases dissolve in the latter solvent with retention of activity.…”

Challenges and Perspective of Recent Biomass Pretreatment Solvents

“…γ-Valerolactone (GVL) was also applied as a co-solvent in biomass pretreatment due to its chemical stability, water miscibility and low melting temperature (Raj et al, 2021;Shuai et al, 2016b). GVL is considered a green solvent in many applications such as polymer and pharmaceuticals manufacturing based on its ecotoxicity and biodegradability tests (Kerkel et al, 2021). Luterbacher et al investigated nonenzymatic saccharification using GVL and resulted in high sugar yields by lowering the activation energy of the hydrolysis of glycosidic bonds (Luterbacher et al, 2014;Mellmer et al, 2014).…”