Process development for tall oil lignin production

Jonathan A Diaz-Baca; Pedram Fatehi

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124891

Process development for tall oil lignin production

Bioresour Technol. 2021 Jun:329:124891. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124891. Epub 2021 Feb 24.

Authors

Jonathan A Diaz-Baca¹, Pedram Fatehi²

Affiliations

¹ Green Processes Research Centre and Chemical Engineering Department, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, ON P7B5E1, Canada.
² Green Processes Research Centre and Chemical Engineering Department, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, ON P7B5E1, Canada. Electronic address: pfatehi@lakeheadu.ca.

PMID: 33676355
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124891

Abstract

The aim of this work was to study the production and characterization of tall oil lignin (TOL) from tall oil soap (TOS) of the kraft pulping process following a new process (i.e., LignoTall). Also, the properties of the TOL and kraft lignin (KL) produced via LignoForce technology were compared. Although TOL and KL were generated from the same black liquor and softwood species, they had remarkably different characteristics, confirming the impact of the production methods on the physicochemical properties of the isolated lignin. TOL had higher molecular weight, O/C elemental ratio, sulfur content, and carboxylate-OH content but lower methoxy group content than did KL. The high sulfur group content (7.3%) of TOL can be very useful for the vulcanization process. Moreover, the high carboxylate-OH content of TOL (0.56 mmol/g) is desirable for its utilization in epoxy resin production.

Keywords: Biomass fractionation; Biorefining; Kraft pulping; Tall oil.

MeSH terms

Lignin*
Plant Oils*

Substances

Plant Oils
tall oil
Lignin