A groundbreaking study from the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research shows that biomass—rather than petroleum—could become the raw material for tomorrow’s chemical industry. 

 

The team, led by Prof Benjamin List, has published their findings in Science.

 

“The motto is: biomass as a chemical raw material instead of petroleum,” says Nils Frank, a doctoral student in List’s lab. Unlike petroleum, the chemical potential of biomass remains largely untapped. The researchers focused on furans, a biomass-derived compound with enormous potential.

 

“For decades, chemists have been practically glued to petroleum, which is why the potential of furans was hardly investigated systematically for a long time. We took a closer look at this,” Frank explains. 

 

Traditional methods oxidize or reduce furans into simpler chemicals, but a straightforward, redox-neutral transformation to compounds like the dialdehyde succinaldehyde had never been achieved—until now.

 

The breakthrough relies on a process called photohydrolysis. "Light is crucial because the reaction is an 'uphill' reaction," Frank says. 

 

Energy must be supplied for the reaction to proceed, and, echoing nature’s photosynthesis, that energy comes from light. “Carbon dioxide and light are the building blocks of a future chemical industry, and Nils' discovery is just the beginning of our work in this direction, which is funded by the Werner Siemens Foundation," List adds.

 

Spectroscopic studies revealed even more surprises. "Interestingly, we discovered that the reaction proceeds via a heterocycle that has not yet been scientifically described," notes co-author Dr. Markus Leutzsch.

 

The implications are far-reaching: valuable drugs, including prostaglandins and antibiotics, could eventually be produced directly from furans without conventional oxidation or reduction steps. Will pharmaceuticals be manufactured this way in the future? 

 

Frank is cautiously optimistic: “However, my colleague Dr. Moreshwar Chaudhari was able to show that the reaction is arbitrarily scalable by developing an illuminated flow reactor, an application method that is particularly useful in industry.”

 

This discovery signals a major step toward a chemical industry that is greener, more sustainable, and less dependent on fossil fuels.