Hydrogen‐Independent Reductive Transformation of Carbohydrate Biomass into γ‐Valerolactone and Pyrrolidone Derivatives with Supported Gold Catalysts

Abstract

A golden opportunity: A highly robust catalyst system consisting of gold nanoparticles supported on acid‐tolerant ZrO2 promoted the conversion of biomass‐derived levulinic acid (1) and formic acid (2) into γ‐valerolactone without the use of an external H2 supply (see scheme, red). The Au/ZrO2 catalyst was also used for the direct one‐pot synthesis of highly valuable pyrrolidone derivatives from 1, 2, and primary amines (see scheme, blue).

Catalytic Transformations of Biomass-Derived Materials into Value-Added Chemicals

“…The reaction of LA with two molecules of phenol serves the diphenolic acid which can be replaced with bisphenol A in the area of industrial epoxy resins and polycarbonates formation processes [105,106]. d-Aminolevulinic acid and pyrrolidone produced via amination are attractive derivatives of LA as important intermediates in the synthesis of agricultural and pharmaceutical compounds [107,108]. Notably, the formation of c-valerolactone (GVL) has been widely investigated in this decade because it can provide the valeric acid which serves a new biofuels called as valeric biofuels [109], butene by decarboxylation [110], and 1,4-pentanediol and methyl tetrahydrofuran (MTHF) as a fuel extender by reduction [111,112].…”

Catalysis by gold: New insights into the support effect

“…In order to enhance the metal-support interaction and anchor GNPs on the surface, as shown in Fig. 3, we functionalized the surface of SiO 2 with SH (HS(CH 2 ) 3 Si(OCH 3 ) 3 , MPTS) and NH 2 (H 2 N(CH 2 ) 3 Si(OCH 3 ) 3 , APTS) [119][120][121], and then reduced the gold precursor by aqueous NaBH 4 . This method was more efficient in controlling the size of GNPs than the one-pot synthesis method.…”

“…Supported gold nanoparticles (GNPs) have been widely used in many catalytic reactions, e.g., hydrogen purification for fuel cells [1,2], synthesis of fine chemicals [3,4], control of environmental pollution [5], electrocatalysis [6,7], and many other organic reactions [8][9][10][11][12]. There are many recent reviews on different applications of gold catalysts, e.g., in selective oxidation [13][14][15][16] and hydrogenation reactions [3,17] to show their industrial prospects [18].…”

Eco-solvents – cluster-formation, surfactantless microemulsions and facilitated hydrotropy

“…g-Valerolactone (GVL) is another sugar-based eco-solvent that has attracted attention recently. [10][11][12][13][14] It can be produced at yields higher than 95% by the hydrogenation of levulinic acid 15,16 which can be derived from biomass. 17, 18 Horváth et al…”