Green Chemistry and Biofinery Concepts on Biomass Valorisation

A special issue of Sustainable Chemistry (ISSN 2673-4079).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2023) | Viewed by 4352

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. CICECO, Aveiro Institute of Materials, Department of Chemistry, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
2. CECOLAB - Collaborative Laboratory Towards Circular Economy, R. Nossa Senhora da Conceição, 3405-155 Oliveira do Hospital, Portugal
Interests: Research and development of green and sustainable technologies for the valorisation of different types of biomass using alternative solvents (e.g., ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, supercritical carbon dioxide, among others) towards the integration in biorefineries.
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry, University of Pisa, 56124 Pisa, Italy
Interests: biomass exploitation; lignocellulosic and waste biomass valorization; 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural, levulinic acid and furfural; biorefinery perspective; sustainable development; applied catalysis; Ru, Pd, Au and Cu heterogeneous systems; optimization of the catalytic performances
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Material, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Interests: the application of green solvents (ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents) for biomass valorization; the determination of phase equilibrium (liquid-vapor equilibrium, liquid-liquid equilibrium, and solid-liquid equilibrium)

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

One of the utmost challenges of society is to move from a non-renewable and polluting fossil-based economy to a more sustainable model of economic development. To cover such a demand, circular economy and bioeconomy have been implemented to encourage the use and reuse of renewable resources, such as biomass feedstocks. However, conventional biomass processing and converting technologies still face some bottlenecks, such as lack of efficiency and selectivity, difficult downstreaming, undesired side reactions and equipment corrosion, which compromises full and economical biomass valorisation. Therefore, a biorefinery concept that predicts the utilization of biomass in different processing platforms towards the production of energy, fuels, materials and chemicals must be employed analogous to a petroleum refinery. In addition, this activity must also be guided by green chemistry principles, which contemplate good practises in chemistry processing to achieve low impacts on the environment and public health. Otherwise, no significant benefit is gained from biomass in contrast to non-renewable feedstocks.

In this context, this Special Issue, entitled as “Green Chemistry and Biorefinery Concepts on Biomass Valorisation” aims at gathering cutting-edge studies and innovative technologies on the entire biomass processing value chain assisted by green chemistry tools (e.g., ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, supercritical fluids, green catalysts and reagents) with potential to be integrated into biorefinery platforms. Authors are encouraged to submit their contributions in different hot topics as follows:

  • Extraction of value-added compounds from biomass using green technologies, including microwave and ultrasound;
  • Application of green solvents on biomass pre-treatment and fractionation;
  • Enzymatic hydrolysis of biomass components in green solvents;
  • Lignin depolymerization into aromatics through the application of green catalysts and solvents;
  • Catalytic conversion of sugars into platform chemicals (aromatics, organic acids, furans, etc.) with green approaches;
  • Cellulose and lignin application in novel materials using green chemistry approaches;
  • Fermentation of sugar-based streams into biofuels and biochemicals;
  • Conversion of fat-based biomass or oil streams assisted by green catalysts towards the production of biodiesel and jet fuels;
  • Extraction and valorisation of protein-based streams with green solvents and catalysts;
  • Downstream processing focused on the recycling of green solvents and catalysts as well as on the purification of produced biofuels, biomaterials and biochemicals.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Sustainability.

Dr. André M. Da Costa Lopes
Prof. Dr. Claudia Antonetti 
Dr. Filipe Hobi Bordón Sosa
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • green solvents
  • green catalysts
  • biorefinery
  • biomass pretreatment and fractionation
  • catalytic conversion
  • depolymerization
  • cellulose
  • hemicellulose
  • lignin
  • biofuels
  • biomaterials
  • platform chemicals
  • fermentation
  • downstream processing
  • solvent and catalyst recycling
  • purification methods

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 4274 KiB  
Article
SBA-15 Modified with Tethered Ionic Liquids Applied in the Esterification of Valeric Acid with Pentanol—Towards Cellulosic Biofuels
by Lisa Mullins and James A. Sullivan
Sustain. Chem. 2020, 1(2), 138-153; https://doi.org/10.3390/suschem1020011 - 5 Sep 2020
Viewed by 3071
Abstract
Two catalysts are prepared by tethering ionic liquid cation components (1-(propyl-3-sulfonate)-3-(3-trimethoxysilylpropyl) imidazolium) with either chloride or sulphate anions, to the surface of a mesoporous SiO2 material through a condensation reaction. These are characterized using elemental analysis, TGA-MS, FTIR (and D-FTIR), TEM, physisorption [...] Read more.
Two catalysts are prepared by tethering ionic liquid cation components (1-(propyl-3-sulfonate)-3-(3-trimethoxysilylpropyl) imidazolium) with either chloride or sulphate anions, to the surface of a mesoporous SiO2 material through a condensation reaction. These are characterized using elemental analysis, TGA-MS, FTIR (and D-FTIR), TEM, physisorption and NH3 adsorption (TPD and FTIR), and applied in the valeric acid + pentanol esterification reaction to form the sustainable biodiesel Pentyl Valerate. The material containing the sulfate counter-ion was significantly more active than the chloride analogue. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Chemistry and Biofinery Concepts on Biomass Valorisation)
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