Issue 7, 2017

Expanding the biomass derived chemical space

Abstract

Biorefinery aims at the conversion of biomass and renewable feedstocks into fuels and platform chemicals, in analogy to conventional oil refinery. In the past years, the scientific community has defined a number of primary building blocks that can be obtained by direct biomass decomposition. However, the large potential of this “renewable chemical space” to contribute to the generation of value added bio-active compounds and materials still remains unexplored. In general, biomass derived building blocks feature a diverse range of chemical functionalities. In order to be integrated into value-added compounds, they require additional functionalization and/or covalent modification thereby generating secondary building blocks. The latter can be thus regarded as functional components of bio-active molecules or materials and represent an expansion of the renewable chemical space. This perspective highlights the most recent developments and opportunities for the synthesis of secondary biomass derived building blocks and their application to the preparation of value added products.

Graphical abstract: Expanding the biomass derived chemical space

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
28 Feb 2017
Accepted
22 Apr 2017
First published
24 Apr 2017
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2017,8, 4724-4738

Expanding the biomass derived chemical space

N. Brun, P. Hesemann and D. Esposito, Chem. Sci., 2017, 8, 4724 DOI: 10.1039/C7SC00936D

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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