Levoglucosan could be obtained by biomass pyrolysis and chemically transformed to high-added value compounds becoming a promising platform molecule.

Among several value-added products from glycerol, glyceryl carbonate (GC) has gained prominence during the recent years because of its attractive physicochemical properties and the wide range of industrial applications. As a continuation of our efforts on GC production under environmentally benign conditions, in this work, we have applied a combination of two new biocatalysts containing lipases from porcine pancreas and Candida antarctica immobilized on epoxy resins for GC production via an integrated reaction between triacylglycerol and dimethyl carbonate under both batch and packed-bed reactors. Under continuous flow conditions, the 1:1 (w/w) combination of the home-made immobilized biocatalysts was able to lead to complete conversion of GC with >99% selectivity against 88% demonstrated by the commercial preparation Novozym 435. The new continuous flow biocatalytic system demonstrated a final productivity of 16 × 10 −2 g of GC/h/U of the biocatalyst.

Every year, a large amount of residual agroindustrial waste has been generated and only around 10% is in fact reused. The development of new strategies for biomass valorization is important to add value to these commodities, since biomass is an excellent alternative feedstock to obtain chemicals of interest from renewable resources. The major compound of pyrolytic treatment of lignocellulosic biomass is levoglucosan (1,6-anhydroglucopyranose), an anhydro-sugar that can be transformed into glucose and is greatly valued in the most diverse industrial sectors as a surfactant, emulsifier, or even a lubricant. In this work, levoglucosan was acylated by lipase-catalyzed transesterification in acetonitrile with great conversions and selectivities with different acyl donors such as ethyl esters of lauric, palmitic, stearic, and oleic acids prepared in situ in an integrated strategy mediated by commercial lipases Novozym435 (N435), PSIM, and the home-made biocatalyst CaLB_epoxy. As a result, all biocatalyst generated mostly monoesters, with N435 being more selective to produce lauric esters (99% at 50°C) and PSIM to produce oleic esters (97% at 55 °C) while CaLB_epoxy was more selective to produce oleic esters of levoglucosan (83% at 55°C). This is the first report in the literature on the production of high selectivity levoglucosan esters.

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Ipase-catalyzed transesterification of LG under continuous flow conditions.

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