The use of environmentally sustainable bio-derived solvents in solvent extraction applications—A review

Replacement of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by greener or more environmentally sustainable solvents is becoming increasingly important due to the increasing health and environmental concerns as well as economic pressures associated with VOCs. Solvents that are derived from biomass, namely bio-derived solvents, are a type of green solvent that have attracted intensive investigations in recent years because of their advantages over conventional VOCs, such as low toxicity, biodegradability and renewability. This review aims to summarize the use of bio-derived solvents in solvent extraction applications, with special emphasis given to utilization of biodiesels and terpenes. Compared with the conventional VOCs, the overall performance of these bio-derived solvents is comparable in terms of extraction yields and selectivity for natural product extraction and no difference was found for metal extraction. To date most researchers have focused on laboratory scale thermodynamics studies. Future work is required to develop and test new bio-derived solvents and understand the kinetic performance as well as solvent extraction pilot plant studies.