Molecularly engineered lignin to polyphenol via organocatalysis as an active sunscreen ingredient

Phenolation is one of the effective strategies to synthesize lignin-based polyphenols, improve lignin's properties, and extend its value-added applications in biological, medicinal and cosmetic fields. Herein, by taking the structural feature advantage of lignin, an effective and green strategy was developed to molecularly engineer lignin into a robust lignin-3-(2-hydroxyphenyl)propionate ester (LPPE) derivative via a transesterification reaction between 3,4-dihydrocoumarin (DHC) and the aliphatic hydroxyls in lignin under organocatalysis. The strategy is optimized and the novel derivative was systematically characterized by 1H, 13C and 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The findings indicated that the successful introduction of 3-(2-hydroxyphenyl)propionate groups using a OH groups/DHC/organic base molar ratio of 1꞉1꞉0.3 at 120 °C for 6 h increased the content of phenolic hydroxyl groups from 1.793 1 to 3.017 9 mmol/g, and the LPPE exhibited excellent ultraviolet-absorbing and antioxidant performance with up to 90 % free radical scavenging activity within 20 min using 5 mg/mL of LPPE. In addition, good biocompatibility and a high Sun protection factor (SPF) value of 40.9 were achieved at 5 % (w) dosage of LPPE in the cream, indicating its significant application potential in sunscreen.