BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Bioprocess Engineering
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1654739
This article is part of the Research TopicGenetic Engineering, Pretreatment, Thermochemical, and Biochemconversion for Lignocellulose Valorization, Volume IIView all 4 articles
Selective and mild oxidation of α-hydroxyl groups in lignin by 2-Iodoxybenzoic acid
Provisionally accepted
- Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
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Secondary benzyl alcohols (α-OH) in lignin β-O-4 linkages are reactive sites that can trigger undesirable condensation reactions during lignin valorization processes. The selective oxidation of α-OH groups can effectively inhibit lignin condensation reactions, thereby promoting lignin depolymerization. Meanwhile, this approach increases the functionalities, which is beneficial for the design of lignin-derived functional materials. In this study, we report a chemoselective oxidation method using 2-iodoxybenzoic acid (IBX) to selectively convert α-OH groups into ketones. The reaction proceeds under ambient conditions with green DMSO as the sole solvent. Oxidation of β–O–4 model compound (guaiacylglycerol-β-guaiacyl ether, VG) revealed exceptional selectivity of this oxidation process, achieving 92% substrate conversion with 90% yield of the corresponding α-ketone product after 48 h. When applied to cellulolytic enzyme lignin, this protocol significantly increased the α-ketone content from 1.2% to 20.5% (relative to total interunit linkages), as identified and quantified by 2D HSQC NMR. The straightforward α-OH oxidation protocol demonstrates significant potential for precise lignin structure modification and rational design of lignin-derived functional materials in sustainable polymer systems.
Keywords: biomass, Lignin, Selective oxidation, Structural modification, Lignincondensation
Received: 26 Jun 2025; Accepted: 22 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang, Dong, Lou, Zhang, Shuai and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Li Shuai, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Chengke Zhao, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
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