Useful Products from Complex Starting Materials: Common Chemicals from Biomass Feedstocks

Abstract

A rapidly expanding area of inquiry is the use of plant biomass for the industrial production of organic compounds for which there is high demand. This interest is fuelled largely by the anticipated decline in the supply of petroleum, and the inevitable concomitant rise in cost. Over the past 30 years, significant progress has been made toward the large-scale conversion of plant biomass to common chemicals such as methanol, ethanol, glycerol, substituted furans, and carboxylic acids. However, examination of the list of top production organic chemicals reveals numerous opportunities for future development, including simple halocarbons, alkenes and arenes. Progress toward efficient and economical production of these challenging targets from biomass has recently been reported, and future success is likely to continue through academic and industrial collaboration.

Catalytic Processes for Utilizing Carbohydrates Derived from Algal Biomass

“…In contrast, as the strong Brønsted acid HBr and HI accelerate the cleavage of the glycosidic linkages, the use of SnBr4 and SnI4 produced methyl lactate in moderate yields (i.e., 27% and 20% yields, respectively, see Table 3, entries 4 and 5). According to previous reports, SnCl 4 is the most effective tin halide catalyst for the production of methyl lactate from 3- [29] or 6-carbon [34] sugars. This can be explained by examining the electronegativity (X p ) of the different halogen atoms (see Table 4) and the pK a values of the hydrogen halides (see Table 5).…”

“…Although the strong Lewis acidity of Sn in SnCl 4 appears to accelerate the retro-aldol reaction, the dehydration, and the 1,2-hydride shift, the glycosidic linkages are not cleaved smoothly due to the low pK a of HCl. In contrast, as the strong Brønsted acid HBr and HI accelerate the cleavage of the glycosidic linkages, the use of SnBr 4 and SnI 4 produced methyl lactate in moderate yields (i.e., 27% and 20% yields, respectively, see Table 3, entries 4 and 5). Based on these results obtaining for the authentic starch sample, the corresponding reactions using algae were investigated.…”

“…Furthermore, this accelerating effect agrees with the report of the Román-Leshkov group, which states that cooperative catalysis in the zeolite pores promotes the aldol condensation between DHA and formaldehyde, and can be attributed to the presence of both a Lewis acidic site (Sn) and a Brønsted acidic site (lattice oxygen) [37]. 3 Reaction conditions: Substrate (225 mg), catalyst (160 mg), naphthalene (120 mg), and methanol (8.0 g) were stirred in an autoclave at 160 °C for 20 h. 4 Yields (mol %) of each product are carbon-based. The quantity of each product produced was determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).…”

“…As such, various methods have been developed to allow the use of carbohydrates as alternative resources, and these processes could have a significant impact on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Carbohydrates derived from both crop biomass (i.e., storage polysaccharides, such as starch) and woody biomass (i.e., cell wall polysaccharides, such as cellulose) have been considered for this purpose [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. However, as the global population continues to increase, the use of limited farmland to grow crop biomass instead of food is clearly unrealistic.…”

Metathesis of 9-octadecenoic acid methyl ester: diversity and mechanism of product formation at various Grubbs’ catalyst concentrations

“…Natural oils and fats are potential sources of unsaturated fatty acids where a number of chemical modifications across the double bonds [7,8] result in a variety of organic intermediates. Owing to their long carbon chains, fatty acid methyl esters offer interesting perspectives for surfactant and polymer applications.…”