Transforming Methyl Levulinate into Biosurfactants and Biolubricants by Chemoselective Reductive Etherification with Fatty Alcohols

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: A. Garcia-Ortiz, K. S. Arias, M. J. Climent, A. Corma, S. Iborra, ChemSusChem 2020, 13, 707, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201903496. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.[EN] Biomass-derived surfactants with very good surfacetension and criticalmicellar concentration properties wereobtained by conversion of methyl levulinate into methyl 4-alkoxypenta- noates through reductive etherification with aliphatic alcohols. Amongdifferent bifunctional acid/metal catalysts bestresults were obtained with Pd on carbon bearing acid sites. The reac- tion occurred through the formation of an enol ether inter- mediate followed by hydrogenation. Pd in high-density planes was the active hydrogenation species, and an optimum crystal size was found to be approximately 10 nm. The reductive etherification with aliphatic alcohols was extended to other aliphatic and cyclic ketonesand aldehydes obtained from bio- mass, and excellent results were obtained on supported Pd catalysts with the reaction route and experimentalconditions described in this work.The research leading to these results has received funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through "Severo Ochoa" Excellence Program (SEV-2016-0683) and the PGC2018-097277-B-100 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) project. The authors also thank the Microscopy Service of UPV for kind help on measurement. A.G.-O. thanks "Severo Ochoa" Program (SEV-2016-0683) for a predoctoral fellowship.Garcia-Ortiz, A.; Arias-Carrascal, KS.; Climent Olmedo, MJ.; Corma Canós, A.; Iborra Chornet, S. (2020). Transforming Methyl Levulinate into Biosurfactants and Biolubricants by Chemoselective Reductive Etherification with Fatty Alcohols. 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