Controlled defunctionalisation of biobased organic acids

The production of chemicals from biomass is of large interest to the sustainable chemistry community. While the main focus in the literature is on compounds that can be directly obtained from carbohydrates via fermentation and on the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass, the production of chemicals via the controlled defunctionalisation of highly functional biobased compounds is largely undervalued. This feature article intends to highlight the recent progress in heterogeneous chemocatalytic defunctionalisation of the widely available citric and amino acids, focusing on the different chemical routes available and identifying the most promising defunctionalisation strategies based on atom economy and functionality index.crosscheck: This document is CrossCheck deposited identifier: Jasper Verduyckt (ORCID) copyright_licence: The Royal Society of Chemistry has an exclusive publication licence for this journal history: Received 21 February 2017; Accepted 22 March 2017; Accepted Manuscript published 23 March 2017; Advance Article published 3 April 2017; Version of Record published 23 May 2017status: publishe