Chemical Engineering Seminar - Cleave and Couple: Sustainable pathways to value added chemicals from renewable resources

In order to achieve true economic feasibility of future biorefineries, it should be ensured that maximum value is derived from all individual components of lignocellulose. Especially the catalytic conversion of the lignin component to well defined aromatic compounds has proven challenging. Furthermore, the downstream processing of the platform chemicals obtained from cellulose(s) and lignin still needs significant improvement in order to access sufficient diversity of products, ultimately covering an entire value pyramid of new bio-based materials.
Importantly, research questions need to be re-designed to maximize material balance, energy efficiency and sustainability in the new catalytic pathways and globally. 
In this lecture I will describe our “cleave and couple” strategy, where “cleave” refers to the catalytic deconstruction of lignocellulose or lignin to aromatic and aliphatic alcohol intermediates, and “couple” involves the development of new transformations for the formation of C-C and C-N bonds in order to obtain a range of products from lignocellulose.