Levulinic acid has been widely recognised as one of the top biobased platform chemicals of the future. It is a versatile building block with a clear value proposition in chemicals.

As the world moves from fossil to alternative feedstocks, levulinic acid can serve as an incredibly versatile building block for chemicals and materials derived directly from biomass.

Derivatives of levulinic acid can successfully address many performance-related issues attributed to petroleum-based chemicals and materials. GFBiochemicals is focused on commercialising levulinic acid derivatives through its joint venture business NXTLEVVEL Biochem BV.

Levulinic acid esters are sold today as niche fruity flavour and fragrance ingredients. However, the increasing demand for green solvents has put levulinates on the mainstream agenda of the chemical industry. As petrochemical solvents are known to be harmful for humans and the environment, levulinic acid derivatives offer a safer and sustainable alternative.

Levulinic acid-derived ketal plasticizers can replace major phthalate-based plasticizers which account for the majority of the world’s plasticizer market. Our plasticizers show excellent compatibility with hydrophilic biopolymers, like PLA, improving their flexibility and overall performance.

Polyols based on levulinate ketals allow reduced isocyanate/catalyst content, no residual unsaturation and are highly compatible with other polyols. The ketal function allows fine tuning of the glass transition temperature to produce visco-elastic polyurethane foams.

Levulinic acid esters and ketals are widely appreciated in many applications because of their broad solvency power, high coupling ability, low volatility, high safety profile, and biodegradability.

In the personal care industry, levulinate ketals can be used as formulation aids to dissolve a wide range of actives, thus expanding formulation flexibility and increasing concentration. By incorporating water into anhydrous systems they enable high water loading for moisturizing formulations. By expanding the solubility of ethanol they retaining clarity; By reducing the greasiness of natural formulations they enable the presentation of a dry, silky after-feel.

In other sectors such as industrial or home cleaning, levulinates deliver excellent degreasing/stain removal, are hugely efficient in removing paint, ink or adhesive and offer stable to concentrated formulations without clouding. Whilst for coatings, both the esters and ketals deliver exceptional performance as coalescents or co-solvents.

Our bio-based solvents offer price stability, stable supply and economic efficiency. They are a safe, environmentally responsible alternative to chlorinated solvents, glycol ethers, NMP, aromatic solvents and d-limonene.

Conversion of levulinic acid into GVL is proven with existing catalysts, resulting in high yields at reasonable operating conditions.

GVL has value advantages over traditional solvents because of its higher solvating power and lower vapor pressure.

GVL is an intermediate for monomers like adipic acid, caprolactam and specialty acrylates and for chemicals as like pyrrolidinone-isomers.

MeTHF can be produced from levulinic acid using hydrogenation technology and is a promising alternative solvent in the search for environmental friendly synthesis strategies.

Its physical and chemical properties, such as its low miscibility with water, boiling point, remarkable stability compared to other cyclic-based solvents such as THF, and others make it appealing for applications in syntheses involving organometallics, organocatalysis, and bio-transformations or for processing lignocellulosic materials.

It’s low miscibility with water, make of MeTHF an excellent solvent for extraction processes.

Like GVL and MeTHF, MeBDO can be obtained from levulinic acid via hydrogenation reactions. Main application for MeBDO are specialty solvents for cometics and food flavors, as well as intermediate for polyesters and polyurethanes.

Alpha-mGVL is a top-performing product as a glass transition temperature booster to increase functionality and performance of low-cost plastics. In Plexiglass, it improves hardness and scratch resistance. It has great potential in consumer electronics, like touchscreens.

Delta-amino levulinic acid (DALA) is a naturally-occurring chemical with a large variety of functions. It is used as a herbicide on lawns and certain grain crops. Increasingly strict environmental protection regulations indicate that the volumes of traditional pesticide chemicals will decrease significantly. DALA is a suitable replacement for traditional herbicides and pesticides. It is also used in pharmaceuticals for diagnosis and treatment of cancer (photodynamic therapy).

DPA is promising as a potential partial replacement for bisphenol A (BPA) in epoxy resins, by adding functionality such us improved cross-linking, covalently bonded plasticizers and so on.