Conference Dates

June 19-24, 2016

Abstract

The majority of commercial bulk chemicals is still derived from fossil resources. The development of green biobased chemicals is high on the global research and development agenda. Lignocellulosic biomass and particularly the cellulose and hemicellulose fraction are considered interesting feeds for the production of key bulk chemicals to serve as building blocks for the chemical industry. Efficient chemo-catalytic conversion technologies for C5 and C6 sugars are under development to generate selected existing bulk chemicals, such as Levulinic acid (LA), caprolactam (CAP), butadiene (BD), furfural and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a very promising platform chemical for the synthesis of a.o. novel monomers for polymer synthesis. To improve the economic viability of the proposed value chains, it is mandatory to valorize byproducts such as humins which are inevitably formed in chemo-catalytic routes to platform chemicals like HMF and levulinic acid (LA) from C6-sugars. Humins are carbonaceous, heterogeneous, polydisperse materials and their formation is a major problem in conversion of carbohydrates to value added platform chemicals. The molecular structure of humins is largely unknown and, depending on the specific conversion process, humins appear as near-solid to syrup-like subtances with a high viscosity at room temperature. It is likely that sugar-derived humins will have variations in phenylic and furanic aromatic character.

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