Biomass is the only renewable and sustainable feedstock for the production of carbon-based fuels and value-added chemicals. Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant form of biomass and consists of polymeric sugars (i.e., cellulose and hemicellulose) and lignin, an aromatic, oxygen-containing polymer. This presentation will highlight approaches to valorize both of these main building blocks.

The conversion of lignin to phenol is attractive because it provides an alternative path to a bulk chemical with a world market of over 10 million tons per year. A multistep process including depolymerization, deoxygenation and cracking is required to funnel the different building blocks into phenol as a common product. Mechanocatalytic depolymerization of lignin offers the opportunity to convert the solid feedstock with solid catalysts in a solvent-free environment. Intimate solid-solid interactions are induced through the mechanical forces in ball mills and short-lived hot spots of at least 1100 K are created. Selective hydrodeoxygenation is achieved over reducible ceria-zirconia catalysts with defect sites that can absorb oxygen atoms from organic reactants. Lastly, alkyl side chains are removed from phenolics in zeolite catalyzed cracking reactions.

Once formed, phenol can serve as a platform molecule to produce a variety of commodity chemical, materials and even active pharmaceutical ingredients