Microwave-assisted flash conversion of non-edible polysaccharides and post-harvest tomato plant waste to levulinic acid

Films made from poly(vinyl alcohol‐co‐ethylene) and soluble biopolymers isolated from postharvest tomato plant

“…6,7 This procedure, designed for biomass analytical purposes, is expected to separate the major biomass proximates on the basis of the components' solubility in benzene and in HCl at different temperatures (Scheme 1, steps 1-3). Formally, the different fractions isolated in steps 1 to 3 are expected to represent lipids and apolar compounds (F1), hemicellulose and proteins (F2), cellulose (F3), and lignin (IR3).…”

“…Secondly, previous work has shown that these specific agriculture residues are a rich source of LS, 6 which are also effective as plant biostimulants to use in further cultivation practices. 7 Thus the manufacture of EVOH blends containing these substances would benefit from the mechanical properties contributed by the synthetic polymer and from the hydrophilic functional groups and eco-compatibility of the LS.…”

Selective and recyclable depolymerization of cellulose to levulinic acid catalyzed by acidic ionic liquid

“…Depolymerization of cellulose to LA has been attempted by various catalysts, including mineral acids (Girisuta, Janssen, & Heeres, 2007;Szabolcs, Molnar, Dibo, & Mika, 2013;Tabasso, Montoneri, Carnaroglio, Caporaso, & Cravotto, 2014), metal chlorides (Seri, Sakaki, Shibata, Inoue, & Ishida, 2002), solid acid catalysts (Alonso, Gallo, Mellmer, Wettstein, & Dumesic, 2013;Zakzeski, Grisel, Smit, & Weckhuysen, 2012;Zuo, Zhang, & Fu, 2014) and acidic polymers (Vyver et al, 2011), whereas the challenging issues were focused on improving the selectivity of LA and developing efficient strategies for product separation and catalyst recovery. Acidic ionic liquids have large potentials in replacing conventional acidic catalysts for they are flexible, recyclable, and could be used as dual solvents and catalysts (Cole et al, 2002).…”

Processing, Valorization and Application of Bio-Waste Derived Compounds from Potato, Tomato, Olive and Cereals: A Review

“…For example, the conversion of non-edible polysaccharides and tomato plant waste to levulinic acid has been developed by a microwave-assisted method. A total conversion has been achieved and clean levulinic acid was obtained without any purification in high yields (63-95%) by 2 min irradiation [262].…”