**6. Conclusions**

Rising concerns over depletion of fossil reserves and the drive towards sustainable and responsible consumption of resources have presented a challenge and opportunity for scientist and engineers to work together in developing methods, technologies and processes for producing of bio-based products. These include commodity chemicals, fuels and materials of which many of the chemicals have solvent properties. As such, they have been widely used in extractions and in solvating a range of physiochemical processes and numerous consumer goods (by either dissolving, stabilizing or modifying the latter's properties) across the manufacturing research and development landscapes. This review has contextualized and discussed some existing and emerging approaches in these areas.

Even though most bio-solvents are still volatile like their petroleum counterparts, the bio-solvents have the advantage of being biodegradable, derived from renewable resources, and their production often results in CO2 emission savings. A novel array of ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents based on inexpensive bio-derived components has been developed, and because these solvents have low volatility, it presents a solution to the volatile organic solvent concern. Additionally, they are usually recyclable after use, with the benefit of tunability to bring about smart solvents for tailored applications.

**17**

**Author details**

South Africa

*Bio-Solvents: Synthesis, Industrial Production and Applications*

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Novisi K. Oklu, Leah C. Matsinha and Banothile C.E. Makhubela\*

\*Address all correspondence to: bmakhubela@uj.ac.za

provided the original work is properly cited.

Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg,

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

This work was supported by the Royal Society and African Academy of Sciences, the Future Leaders—African Independent Researchers (FLAIR) Scheme (Fellowship ref.: 191779), the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa (Grant numbers: 105559, 112809 and 117989) and the University of Johannesburg's

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86502*

Centre for Synthesis and Catalysis.

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**
