RESEARCH ARTICLE


“Green” Chemicals from Renewable Agricultural Biomass - A Mini Review



Yixiang Xu, Milford A. Hanna*, Loren Isom
Industrial Agricultural Products Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0730, USA


Article Metrics

CrossRef Citations:
51
Total Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 1189
Abstract HTML Views: 3328
PDF Downloads: 2143
Total Views/Downloads: 6660
Unique Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 618
Abstract HTML Views: 1767
PDF Downloads: 1556
Total Views/Downloads: 3941



Creative Commons License
Xu et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Industrial Agricultural Products Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0730, USA; E-mail: mhanna1@unl.edu


Abstract

Recently, utilization of renewable resources to replace petroleum as a primary feedstock for liquid fuels, chemicals and materials has become a topic of interest around the world. It is intriguing due to rising oil prices, the negative effects of petroleum on the environment and the advantages of renewable resources, such as their abundance and sustainability. Herein, the possibilities for biobased chemicals prepared from renewable resources are reviewed. The most popular feedstocks for commodity and specialty chemicals are carbohydrates as they account for approximately 95% of the biomass produced annually. The conversion routes, including chemical and biological routes, direct extraction, and selected technical advancements are discussed. Examples of select biochemcials, their conversion pathways from biomass, and their derivatives and potential applications are indentified.

Keywords: Green chemicals, biomass, biomass conversion, biobased chemicals, renewable resources.