Vanillin wood-sourced

The Norwegian company Borregaard makes vanillin by chemo-oxidation of cheap natural lignin. In view of the complexity of the lignin structure this is a remarkable achievement. This semi-synthetic vanillin is, however, not allowed to carry the qualification of natural . Borregaard is the only global producer of lignin-vanillin or wood-sourced vanillin , with a volume of about 2000 t a-1. They obtain 4 kg vanillin from one ton of wood. This vanillin is more expensive than synthetic vanillin, but the flavorist needs lower doses of the extra round flavor . 

Remaud et al. [28] reported that they could detect as little as 5% adulteration of vanillin with vanillin ex-guaiacol (petrochemical source) and 10% adulteration with vanillin ex-lignin (wood source) using SNIF-NMR. These detection limits were established using the D/H data at aU sites (as opposed to any one site). Fronza et al. [30] demonstrated that using SNIF-NMR they could distinguish between raspberry ketone that came from authentic botanical origin, microbial conversions, and other nonnatural sources. The method appears to be extremely difficult to circumvent. The... 

Wood forms one of the world s most important chemical raw materials. It is the primary source of cellulose for the pulp and paper and cellulose industries. These industries are well up in the group of 10 major industries of the United Slates. For paper, rayon, films, lacquers, explosives and plastics, which comprise the greatest chemical uses of wood, it is the cellulose component (plus certain amounts of hemicellulose) of wood that is of value. The lignin forms a major industrial waste as a by-product of the paper and cellulose industries. Its major use is in its heat value in the recovery of alkaline pulping chemicals. A variety of minor uses for lignin have been developed, such as for the manufacture of vanillin, adhesives, plastics, oil-well drilling compounds and fillers for rubber. 

In such cases, determination of the ratio between the stable isotopes carbon-12 and carbon-13 may be a way to differentiate between different sources of botanical origin, reflecting differences in the CO2 assimilation pathways. This procedure has only been used with some degree of accuracy in a limited number of cases such as the distinction between vanillin from vanilla beans and vanillin from wood lignin. (14)... 

Nowadays, synthetic vanUlm is obtained predominantly from petrochemical sources. For vanillin, the key compound is guaiacol (o-methoxyphenol). This is obtained initially from wood tar, coal tar, wood distillate or lignite distillate. Targeted syntheses start from benzene via dichlorobenzene, catechol may be obtained, which is further monomethylated. The second route begins with the oxidation of cumene (the so called Hock synthesis ) to give phenol, and continues with nitration, methylation, reduction, diazotisation and heating of the diazonium salt solution. [142]... 

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