Extreme makeover chemistry style

In revisiting a chemical reaction that’s been in the literature for several decades and adding a new wrinkle of their own, researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow many of today’s petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass.

“We’ve found and optimized a selective, one-pot deoxygenation technique based on a formic acid treatment,” said Robert Bergman, a co-principal investigator on this project who holds a joint appointment with Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division and the UC Berkeley Chemistry Department.

The formic acid, Bergman said, converts glycerol, a major and unwanted by-product in the manufacturing of biodiesel, into allyl alcohol, which is used as a starting material in the manufacturing of polymers, drugs, organic compounds, herbicides, pesticides and other chemical products. Allyl alcohol today is produced from the oxidation of petroleum.

Said Jonathan Ellman, a UC Berkeley chemistry professor and the other principal investigator in this research, “Right now, about five percent of the world’s supply of petroleum is used to make feedstocks that are synthesized into commodity chemicals. If these feedstocks can instead be made from biomass they become renewable and their production will no longer be a detriment to the environment.”

EurekAlert