(458h) One-Step Conversion of Lignocellulosic Biomass to Bio-Based Amines

The direct conversion of woody biomass into bio-based amines presents a promising opportunity to diversify product streams and improve the economic viability of biomass refineries. These amines are valuable platform chemicals used in pharmaceuticals, solvents, food additives, polymers, personal care products, detergents, and agrochemicals. Conventional approaches rely on multi-step processing to convert biomass-derived alcohols into amines, which increases cost, complexity, and waste. To address this, Ning Yan and colleagues recently developed a one-pot process for extracting lignin from lignocellulosic biomass and subsequently converting it into aromatic amines using Ru/C, ammonia, methanol, and hydrogen, offering a simplified route to high-value products [1].

Inspired by this foundation, we present a one-step strategy for converting whole lignocellulosic biomass components into bio-based amines. Our approach integrates supercritical methanol depolymerization (SCMD), hydrodeoxygenation (HDO), and amination in a single reactor system. Using hybrid poplar (Po) as a feedstock, we evaluated the reaction with four nitrogen sources: ammonium hydroxide (AH), ammonium nitrate (AN), urea (UR), and ammonium sulfate (AS). Each compound served not only as N-donors for amination but also influenced SCMD efficiency. Our results demonstrate the significant impact of nitrogen sources on mass balance, oil yield, and product molecular weight distribution (Figure 1). To further investigate the underlying mechanism of this one-step reaction, we conducted the SCMD-HDO-amination with model compounds. Further details on reaction performance, process design, and optimization strategies will be presented at the upcoming AIChE meeting.

[1] Yan et al., Chem 9, 2869–2880 (2023)