Organic Chemicals from Wood: Selective Depolymerization and Dearomatization of Lignin via Aqueous Electrocatalysis.

Replacing crude oil as the primary industrial source of carbon-based chemicals has become crucial for both environmental and resource sustainability reasons. In this scenario, wood arises as an excellent candidate, whilst depolymerization approaches have emerged as promising strategies to unlock the lignin potential as a resource in the production of high-value organic chemicals. However, many drawbacks, such as toxic solvents, expensive catalysts, high energy inputs, and poor product selectivity have represented major challenges to this task.