Fractionation of lignin from rice straw using an acidified biphasic solvent system

Quan Zhang; Chenxing Dai; Jun Zhang; Xiaojun He; Xuesong Tan; Kai Zhang; Xia Xu; Xinshu Zhuang

doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.123249

Fractionation of lignin from rice straw using an acidified biphasic solvent system

Int J Biol Macromol. 2023 Mar 1:230:123249. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.123249. Epub 2023 Jan 11.

Authors

Quan Zhang¹, Chenxing Dai², Jun Zhang³, Xiaojun He⁴, Xuesong Tan⁵, Kai Zhang², Xia Xu², Xinshu Zhuang⁶

Affiliations

¹ Biochemical Engineering Research Center, Anhui University of Technology, Ma'anshan, Anhui 243002, PR China; School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Ma'anshan, Anhui 243002, PR China; Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New and Renewable Energy Research and Development, Guangzhou 510640, PR China.
² Biochemical Engineering Research Center, Anhui University of Technology, Ma'anshan, Anhui 243002, PR China; School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Ma'anshan, Anhui 243002, PR China.
³ College of Food Science and Technology, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524088, China.
⁴ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Ma'anshan, Anhui 243002, PR China.
⁵ Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New and Renewable Energy Research and Development, Guangzhou 510640, PR China. Electronic address: tanxs@ms.giec.ac.cn.
⁶ Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New and Renewable Energy Research and Development, Guangzhou 510640, PR China. Electronic address: zhuangxs@ms.giec.ac.cn.

PMID: 36639079
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.123249

Abstract

To obtain lignin from lignocellulosic biomass, phenoxyethanol (EPH) was employed to construct a biphasic solvent system. The concentration of EPH in this biphasic solvent system was first studied to determine a pretreatment condition for fractionation of lignin. Then, the fractionation of lignin from rice straw was performed under the conditions of temperature 130 °C, cooking time 60 min and sulfuric acid concentration 0.1 M, in 70 % aqueous EPH solvent system. The results showed that 50.97 %, 49.52 % or 82.02 % of the removed lignin with the purity of 89.04 %, 91.30 % or 84.76 % was regenerated from EPH liquor using dimethyl carbonate (DMC), dimethoxymethane (DMM) or diethyl ether (DE) as precipitant, respectively. Additionally, the weight-average molecular weight (Mw) and dispersity index (Đ) of the regenerated lignin decreased to 4247-4809 g/mol and 1.26-1.60 compared with that of the original lignin (5654 g/mol and 4.78). Finally, the compositional and structural characteristics of lignin, e.g., molecular weight and molecular structure, were also investigated by DSC, HSQC and elemental analysis.

Keywords: Biphasic fractionation; Lignin; Pretreatment.

MeSH terms

Biomass
Chemical Fractionation
Hydrolysis
Lignin* / chemistry
Oryza* / chemistry
Solvents / chemistry

Substances

Lignin
Solvents