Umbrella Project I

Cardanol and Glycerol Exploitation

 

Cardanol is the main constituent of Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL) that represents one of major source of natural phenolic lipids. Depending on the extraction method, CNSL is classified in two types: CNSL extracted with solvent and technical CNSL. The former has mainly anacardic acid, cardol and, traces of methyl cardol. After the cashew nut being submitted to industrial process of heating, the anacardic acid is decarboxylated rendering technical CNSL which is free of anacardic acid, having as the main constituents cardanol (60-65%), cardol (15-20%) and, polymeric materials (10%). Each phenolic constituent is a mixture of saturated, monoene, diene and, triene compounds. Due to unique characteristics of cardanol and its derivatives, they have been stimulating researchers to study their potential to prepare varnish, coating materials and, as starting material for organic synthesis. The literature has focused to the preparation of hybrid molecular systems where cardanol is involved on the planning of new molecular entities.

Currently, another important industrial residue is glycerol. Its use in the synthesis of higher value chemicals has been highlighted in the green chemistry area for the last few years. The exponential growth of biodiesel production, in which glycerol is generated as by-product raised an enormous concern about its environmental impact. In fact, the glycerol disposal is a major issue in the mass production of biodiesel and it is desirable to find alternatives for the consumption of extra volume of crude glycerol. Thus, glycerol has been used as a versatile primary chemical building block to produce a great variety of commercially valuable compounds.

Taking into account the characteristics of the compounds mentioned above, we aim to combine their properties into single compounds with unique potentials.

 

Captura de tela 2017-02-27 19.00.09

 


Ongoing projects

1. Design and synthesis of fluorescent markers for fuels

 

D&P_Felipe


2. Design and synthesis of new surfactants for micellar catalysis – Nanoreactors

 

 

 

This project has been inspired by work of the Lipshutz Research Group, University of California, Santa Barbara.


 
 
3. New nonionic amphiphiles to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquito and pathogenic microorganisms

 

surfactantes


Selected Publications

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