In the present study, petroleum‐free production of alkylated phenols from glycerol was achieved by judicious use of microbial biosynthesis and heterogeneous catalysis with the aim to advance biomass conversion to industrially relevant chemical products. First, metabolically engineered bacterium Escherichia coli was adopted to convert glycerol to phenol. Biophenol was then extracted from the cell culture using select polymeric resins. Desorption of phenol was achieved with tertiary butyl alcohol, which serves also as a reactant in subsequent heterogeneous catalytic reaction. The adopted resins were also compared as catalysts for alkylation of phenol to tert‐butyl phenolic products. Interestingly, the resins exhibited different phenol adsorption and catalytic reactivities. The holistic approach developed by this study offers a unique opportunity to synthesize end products directly from glycerol that cannot be achieved in such an efficient manner (i.e., low temperature, low pressure, and high selectivity) by using microbial biosynthesis or heterogeneous catalysis approaches alone.

中文翻译：

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迈向微生物合成和催化耦合生产烷基化酚化合物

在本研究中，通过明智地使用微生物生物合成和非均相催化来实现从甘油的无石油生产烷基化酚，目的是促进将生物量转化为与工业相关的化学产品。首先，代谢工程菌大肠杆菌被用来将甘油转化为苯酚。然后使用选择的聚合物树脂从细胞培养物中提取生物酚。用叔丁醇实现苯酚的解吸，叔丁醇在随后的多相催化反应中也用作反应物。还比较了采用的树脂作为将苯酚烷基化为叔丁基苯酚产品的催化剂。有趣的是，这些树脂表现出不同的苯酚吸附和催化反应性。这项研究开发的整体方法为直接从甘油合成最终产品提供了独特的机会，而仅通过微生物生物合成或非均相催化方法无法以这种有效方式（即，低温，低压和高选择性）获得最终产品。