The concept of a biorefinery, as applied to research, refers to the practice of taking renewable resources and chemically converting them to produce potentially value-added products. The philosophy has been applied to the synthesis of amphiphiles that give rise to diverse applications such as molecular gels. Mannitol and sorbitol, sugar alcohols derived from biomass, were chemically or enzymatically modified to create amphiphilic building blocks that undergo self-assembly and hence can serve as low-molecular-organic-gelators. The biobased amphiphiles were found to gel a wide range of solvents. From a chemical education standpoint, the synthesis could demonstrate the biorefinery concept and green chemistry principles.

Biorefinery concept: An approach to the synthesis of amphiphilic building blocks for molecular gels

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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