(9e) Sustainable One-Pot Production of Diformylxylose from Agricultural Biomass: Process Development, Scaling-up, and Life-Cycle Assessment

The manufacturing and disposal of chemicals are among the primary contributors to carbon emissions and environmental pollution. Despite widespread efforts, more than 99 % of the most common chemicals are still not produced sustainably. At the same time, the top 20 global chemical manufacturers have publicly committed to reach near-zero emissions or carbon neutrality by 2050. Addressing these challenges requires a collective effort to develop and adopt more environmentally friendly and safe chemical processes and products with minimal carbon impact. Biomass plays an important role in this transition since biomass is the largest source of renewable carbon on Earth. Agricultural waste, particularly corn cobs, is one of the most promising biomass feedstocks since it is available in huge quantities, does not compete with food crops, and is usually burnt or buried in the fields. With over 1 billion tonnes of corn produced globally each year, corn cobs represent an advantageous source of renewable carbon for the production of carbohydrate-based platform chemicals.

Diformylxylose (DFX), a new xylose-based platform chemical, demonstrated potential as a versatile and sustainable alternative in various applications where it can serve as a starting material for the production of xylitol in a tripled yield, a precursor for furfural production in biphasic system, as well as a polar aprotic etheric solvent with comparable performance to toxic and environmentally harmful solvents (e.g. NMP, DMAc, DMF).

In this work, we demonstrated the one-pot production of DFX from D-xylose and corn cobs in high yields, while adhering to the principles of green chemistry. The process was successfully developed and scaled up from lab- to multi-kg-scale. We performed continuous process simulations and techno-economic analysis, providing insight into the viability of DFX production at different scales and scenarios. We also conducted a preliminary life-cycle assessment and revealed that DFX offers a very low global warming potential as well as minimal environmental impact. Finally, we showed that DFX is inherently biodegradable which facilitates its disposal. Overall, this study provides a practical example of how waste biomass can be sustainably transformed into valuable platform chemical with low cost and high efficacy.