Petrochemical industry has experienced huge development in the last century, dominating different sectors such as plastics, detergents, pharmaceuticals and fertilizers. While technologies for processing of fossil feedstocks are now well established with marginal room for improvements, biorenewable chemicals derived from biomass struggle to be commercialised at large scale due to strong barriers experienced in R&D. Much research is in place to develop catalysts which can achieve high turnover numbers and high yield which can compete with the traditional processes, but the usage of lignocellulosic biomass requires innovative approaches which combine catalyst and solvent design with optimal separation minimizing emissions and waste streams.
In this work, we will investigate ionic liquids as valuable solvents for the synthesis of high value biomonomers such as diformylfuran (DFF) and 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) starting from sugars. So far, the synthesis of these chemicals has seen huge challenges due to the difficulties in isolating the intermediate 5-HMF derived from sugar dehydration, which is the key molecule to produce these monomers. The usage of ionic liquids as solvents can lead to multiple advantages which can allow the production of these molecules at large scale, simplifying process separation and favouring high yield of reaction.
Other bioderived products such as humins and surfactants will be studied as potential applications in the wastewater treatment for removal of heavy metals and detergents industry. A new category of biosurfactants derived from furfural exhibits remarkable proprieties which can have a potential higher cleaning ability compared the current oil derivatives ones.
This thesis copes different aspects for an efficient sugar biorefinery, focused to substitute oil derivative consumer products, such as plastic and detergents, with the aim to achieve the reduction in CO2 emissions.