Furanics: A Novel Diesel Fuel with Superior Characteristics

Avantium explores novel furan chemistry, focused on efficient and, compared to enzymatic bio-refinery processes, low cost conversion of C6 sugars (i.e. glucose, mannose, galactose and fructose) and C5 sugars (i.e. xylose and arabinose) into derivatives of the promising chemical key intermediate hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF (I), Fig. 1) in the presence of a solid acid catalyst. By applying advanced high-throughput R8D technology, a next generation biofuels, called “Furanics” was developed, which can be produced on the basis of sugars and other, non-food, carbohydrates. Furanics are products derived from carbohydrates such as sugars. Novel chemical, catalytic routes are developed to produce Furanics for a range of biofuel applications. Biofuels with advantageous qualities both over existing biofuels such as bioethanol and biodiesel as well as over traditional transportation fuels are the target.