Efficient Synthesis of Furfuryl Alcohol from Corncob in a Deep Eutectic Solvent System

As a versatile and valuable intermediate, furfuryl alcohol (FOL) has been widely used in manufacturing resins, vitamin C, perfumes, lubricants, plasticizers, fuel additives, biofuels, other furan-based chemicals. This work developed an efficient hybrid strategy for the valorization of lignocellulosic biomass to FOL. Corncob (75 g/L) was catalyzed with heterogenous catalyst Sn-SSXR (2 wt%) generate FAL (65.4% yield) deep eutectic solvent ChCl:LA–water system (30:70, v/v; 180 °C) after 15 min. Subsequently, obtained liquor containing formate could be biologically reduced FOL by recombinant E. coli CF aldehyde reductase dehydrogenase at pH 6.5 35 °C, achieving productivity 0.66 g FOL/(g xylan corncob). The formed as cosubstrate bioreduction into In addition, biomasses (e.g., sugarcane bagasse rice straw) converted high yield. Overall, this that combines chemocatalysis biocatalysis can utilized efficiently valorize materials biofurans.