Chapter 4 - Conversion of agricultural crop waste into valuable chemicals

Abstract

Agricultural crop waste is produced in large quantities from fields and agro-based industries and is assumed as a material of no use and needs to be discarded. The major crops grown in today's world are corn, rice, wheat, barley, and sugarcane. Corn cob, corn stover, rice straw, rice husk, wheat straw, barley straw, bagasse, etc. are waste produced from agricultural fields. This waste is generally burnt by farmers emitting harmful gases that have a huge impact on the environment. Thus, there is a need to utilize this waste so that it can be converted into valuable chemicals and stuffs. This waste is also referred to as biomass or lignocellulose. In this chapter, we have discussed the utilization of this agricultural waste for production of almost 25 various value-added chemicals such as furan and its derivatives, levulinic acid, caprolactam, cyclopentanone, polyols, γ-valerolactone, maleic acid/anhydride, isosorbide, acrylic acid, 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid, furoic acid, dienes, ethyl-lactate, isoprene, glycerin, and p-xylenes. The global market survey of these chemicals, various methods of their synthesis from petrochemicals as well as from bio-based resources and its applications for industrially important chemicals has been discussed.