Toward Replacing Ethylene Oxide in a Sustainable World: Glycolaldehyde as a Bio‐Based C₂ Platform Molecule

Abstract

Fossil‐based platform molecules such as ethylene and ethylene oxide currently serve as the primary feedstock for the C2‐based chemical industry. However, in the search for a more sustainable chemical industry, fossil‐based resources may preferentially be replaced by renewable alternatives, provided there is realistic economic feasibility. This Review compares and critically discusses several production routes toward bio‐based structural analogues of ethylene oxide and the required adaptations for their implementation in state‐of‐the‐art C2‐based chemical processes. For example, glycolaldehyde, a structural analogue obtainable from carbohydrates by atom‐economic retro‐aldol reactions, may replace ethylene oxide's leading role. This alternative chemical route may not only allow the carbon footprint of conventional chemicals production to be lowered, but the introduction of a bio‐based pathway may also contribute to safer production processes. Where possible, challenges, drawbacks, and prospects are highlighted.

Reductive Catalytic Fractionation of Lignocellulosic Biomass: Unveiling of the Reaction Mechanism

“…This can be accomplished in a multifunctional catalyst or mixtures containing catalysts with different properties. Different catalysts have been studied for the conversion of cellulose to ethylene glycol and 1,2-propanediol such as Ru-based catalysts. − Transition-metal catalysts have been preferentially used due to their activity for the retro-aldol condensation reaction without sugar isomerization and lower cost. In particular, tungsten-based catalysts gave the highest yield to ethylene glycol from the cellulose conversion. ,− …”

One-Pot Consecutive Reductive Amination Synthesis of Pharmaceuticals: From Biobased Glycolaldehyde to Hydroxychloroquine

“…Moreover, the safe handling, nontoxicity, and enhanced developments in the biobased production of this molecule support our choice. 10,16,17 The greenness of our newly developed reductive amination pathway will be compared to the current synthesis route via the CHEM21 Green Metrics toolkit, an environmental impact assessment tool developed by Clark et al 18−20 This metric quantitatively calculates the greenness of a reaction and qualitatively indicates the eligibility of the process parameters in terms of solvents, consumed energy, workup, and availability by the use of colored flags. While this assessment tool provides a first notion of which synthesis route is considered more ecofriendly, more importantly, the power of the analysis lies in identifying bottlenecks in current methodologies that the greener alternatives might replace.…”

“…In this context, reductive amination is commonly proposed as a green path for the synthesis of the amines used as an alternative to the S N 2-type reactions with halides, which helps avoid stoichiometric amounts of waste . Additionally, due to the impressive advances made in synthesizing bioderived molecules with reactive functional groups such as aldehydes and ketones, which are often used as precursors in reductive amination, their implementation has sparked much interest over the past few years. − …”

“…The unique difunctional reactivity has rendered glycolaldehyde much interest in recent years as a sustainable C 2 molecule that can replace ethylene oxide. Moreover, the safe handling, nontoxicity, and enhanced developments in the biobased production of this molecule support our choice. ,, …”

Controllable preparation and performance of bio-based poly(lactic acid-iminodiacetic acid) as sustained-release Pb2+ chelating agent

“…Sustainable development has always been an important issue for humans ( Naidoo and Fisher, 2020 ) along with material sustainability requiring the integration of green chemistry and raw material development ( Zimmerman et al., 2020 ), especially the full utilization of renewable raw materials ( Stockmann et al., 2020 ). Owing to the irreversibility constraint of the materials from petrochemical resources ( Giraud et al., 2020 ), making use of biomass, the most abundant renewable carbon feedstock in the world ( Liao et al., 2020 ) as an important way to the circular sustainable economy ( Faveere et al., 2020 ) has great potential to replace or even surpass petrochemical feedstocks in most cases ( Wang et al., 2020a , 2020b ). Bio-based materials derived from biomass have been proved to be applicable to vaccine carriers ( Fruk et al., 2021 ), electronic products ( Maiti et al., 2019 ), industrial products ( Hu et al., 2020 ), daily necessities ( Chen et al., 2020 ), fuels ( Sherkhanov et al., 2020 ), and many other fields ( Byun and Han, 2020 ).…”