News

04-03-2021

Biorizon scientists publish novel, efficient routes toward bio-aromatics in Angewandte Chemie & Green Chemistry

We are proud that research by Biorizon’s lead scientist Marc Crockatt was recently published in the leading journals Angewandte Chemie and, together with Biorizon’s senior scientist Dr. Jan Kees van der Waal, Green Chemistry. Biorizon co-initiator TNO and Utrecht University have developed a more efficient way to convert biomass into industrially important bio-aromatics. Furthermore, they have demonstrated, for the first time, that furfural can be directly converted to bio-aromatics.

Angewandte Chemie

Biorizon co-initiator TNO and the research group of Prof. dr. Pieter Bruijnincx from Utrecht University have developed a more efficient way to convert biomass into industrially important bio-aromatics using Diels-Alder chemistry. The key is utilizing feedstocks that significantly increase atom efficiency while reducing an inefficient detour that is required for more traditional approaches. This improves the techno-economics and reduces the product price.

This new route utilizes two non-edible sugar-derived bio-based feedstocks which are currently either produced commercially or are in the demonstration phase. This increases chances of scale-up and reduces the time to market.

The work links two chemical reactions in a ‘tandem conversion’ to ensure the production of the desired material at once, instead of a mixture of 4 potential products. In practice, the desired product is withdrawn from the reaction mixture and the unwanted by-products are converted back into the raw material. By repeating this procedure until all raw materials have been converted, it is possible to selectively produce the desired product.

This collaboration has resulted in a patent application and the research was recently published in the leading scientific journal Angewandte Chemie (impact factor 12.959). Work is ongoing to scale-up and further validate the process.

Green Chemistry

Furthermore, Biorizon co-initiator TNO and the research group of Prof. dr. Pieter Bruijnincx from Utrecht University have recently demonstrated, for the first time, that furfural can be directly converted to bio-aromatics.

Furfural, commonly produced from sugarcane bagasse and corn cobs, is seen as being a key platform chemical for the realization of a sustainable chemical industry. It was previously thought that this molecule was unreactive to the type of Diels-Alder chemistry that is required to produce bio-aromatics. This has resulted in inefficient ‘detours’ being applied, increasing costs and reducing atom- and feedstock-efficiency.

Key to the new development is the use of the most sustainable solvent: water. The work opens the door to production of a range of bio-aromatic products and other furfural-derived products with improved sustainability.

This research was recently published in the scientific journal Green Chemistry of the Royal Society of Chemistry (impact factor 9.480) with Biorizon’s Marc Crockatt and Dr. Jan Kees van der Waal amongst the authors.