Furfural and 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural: Two pivotal intermediates for bio-based chemistry

Research on furfural and 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural concerns all fields of chemistry: catalysis, mechanistic studies, synthetic organic chemistry, materials sciences, and chemical engineering. The purpose of this account is, by picking a selection of the very recent literature, to show the vitality of the field and to illustrate how transdisciplinary approaches can help overcoming the strong overlap between catalysts, solvent, and process issues. It highlights the necessity to encourage researches in two main directions, one being the optimization of the access to industrially relevant targets and the second being the commitment of synthetic organic chemists to explorative studies on new reactions and new architectures.