Recent Progress in Solketal Synthesis from Glycerol and Acetone

Abstract The extensive use of biodiesel leads to the excess of glycerol as a by‐product. But as a carbon resource, it has been increasingly used in organic synthesis of high value‐added derivatives in recent years. Among them, solketal is one of the most important derivatives of glycerol, which is generated by the reaction of glycerol and acetone. Based on a large number of relevant literatures, this paper systematically summarized the relevant researches in recent ten years. We systematically summary the latest research progress on the synthesis of solketal by glycerol and acetone. We have focused on a systematic study of four different reaction mechanisms for the ketonation reaction of glycerol and acetone. And the types of catalysts were classified into two categories, homogeneous catalysts and non‐homogeneous catalysts, and the non‐homogeneous catalysts were further classified in more details for the study. This review provides a more comprehensive reference for the ketal reaction of glycerol and acetone, and develops some new ideas for the transformation.