Furfural: a renewable and versatile platform molecule for the synthesis of chemicals and fuels
R. Mariscal,  P. Maireles-Torres,  M. Ojeda,  I. Sádabaa and   M. López Granados*

Energy Environ. Sci., 2016, Advance Article

DOI: 10.1039/C5EE02666K
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2016/ee/c5ee02666k#!divAbstract
Received 30 Aug 2015, Accepted 11 Jan 2016
First published online 11 Jan 2016



The production of future transportation fuels and chemicals requires the deployment of new catalytic processes that transform biomass into valuable products under competitive conditions. Furfural has been identified as one of the most promising chemical platforms directly derived from biomass. With an annual production close to 300 kTon, furfural is currently a commodity chemical, and the technology for its production is largely established. The aim of this review is to discuss the most relevant chemical routes for converting furfural to chemicals, biofuels, and additives. This review focuses not only on industrially produced chemicals derived from furfural, but also on other not yet commercialised products that have a high potential for commercialisation as commodities. Other chemicals that are currently produced from oil but can also be derived from furfural are also reviewed. The chemical and engineering aspects such as the reaction conditions and mechanisms, as well as the main achievements and the challenges still to come in the pursuit of advancing the furfural-based industry, are highlighted.

Recent Advances in Process Chemistry

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.oprd.6b00012

Lots of good stuff in this one, below is one example.

Synthesis of 2,3,6-Trisubstituted Pyridines from Isoxazolinones

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Substituted pyridines are an important class of organic compounds and ubiquitous in the chemistry world. Various methodologies have been developed to construct substituted pyridine derivatives. Recently, René Peters and co-workers developed a regioselective Pd-catalyzed synthesis of 2,3,6-trisubstituted pyridines from isoxazolinones (Peters, R., et al. J. Org. Chem. 2015, 80, 6822). The protocol involves a regioselective Pd(II)-catalyzed 1,4-addition of isoxazolinones to enones, followed by a Pd(0)-catalyzed dihydropyridine formation and oxidation. The formation of the dihydropyridine is hypothesized via a vinylnitrene-Pd complex species formed by oxidative addition of Pd(0) to the N–O bond of the 1,4-adduct followed by a decarboxylation. This two-step sequence allows a rapid and regioselective entry to substituted pyridines starting from readily accessible isoxazolinones. Despite these advantages, the safety issue needs to be addressed during application of this approach toward large-scale production as the second step required a mixture of hydrogen and air.