Molecules (Jul 2018)

Biorenewable Deep Eutectic Solvent for Selective and Scalable Conversion of Furfural into Cyclopentenone Derivatives

  • Maria Luisa Di Gioia,
  • Monica Nardi,
  • Paola Costanzo,
  • Antonio De Nino,
  • Loredana Maiuolo,
  • Manuela Oliverio,
  • Antonio Procopio

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules23081891
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 23, no. 8
p. 1891

Abstract

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The development of novel synthetic routes to produce bioactive compounds starting from renewable sources has become an important research area in organic and medicinal chemistry. Here, we present a low-cost procedure for the tunable and selective conversion of biomass-produced furfural to cyclopentenone derivatives using a mixture of choline chloride and urea as a biorenewable deep eutectic solvent (DES). The proposed medium is a nontoxic, biodegradable, and could be reused up to four times without any unfavorable effect on the reaction yield. The process is tunable, clean, cheap, simple and scalable and meets most of the criteria; therefore, it can be considered as an environmental sustainable process in a natural reaction medium.

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