Le glycérol « building blocks » majeur de la bioraffinerie oléagineuse

Biodiesel production increases, and each ton of biodiesel produced leads to about 100 kg of glycerol. Because of increasing amount of generated glycerol, but also according to environmental concerns and scarcity of oil, glycerol is considered as one of the top 10 building block chemicals derived from biomass that can subsequently be converted into a number of high value biobased chemicals. Besides the well established sell of purified glycerine to manufacturers of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, a variety of novel conversion techniques are introduced. This paper provides an overview of the latest biobased compounds produced from glycerol’s conversion, and of the lower environmental impact of these new ways of production.