Hemicellulose in corn straw：Extracted from alkali solution and produced5-hydroxymethyl furfural in HCOOH/HCOONa buffer solution

• Published in: 中国化学工程学报：英文版 2016, Vol.24 (12), p.1786-1792
• Main Author: Yan Li Hongxian Fan Xueqing Yu Songmei Zhang Gang Li
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1004-9541; 2210-321X

Hemicellulose in corn straw is a group of complex heteropolysaccharides which are composed of different sugar units, including mannans, xylans, arabinans and galactans. This study developed a simple and practical process for production of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural（HMF） using hemicellulose that was extracted from corn straw. In the hemicellulose degradation process HCOOH/HCOONa was used as buffer solution, and the optimum conditions for maximum HMF yield were explored. Various extraction conditions including NaOH concentration, reaction time,temperature, solid-to-liquid ratio and precipitant were tested for hemicellulose obtaining, giving the optimum condition of 55 °C, 4 h, solid-to-liquid ratio of 1：10, 1.5 mol·L~（-1） NaOH solution and ethanol as precipitant with the yield of 34.16%. Dehydration of hemicellulose under HCOOH/HCOONa buffer solution process, using solution medium of pH = 0.8 hydrolyzed hemicellulose in corn straw at 190 °C after 190 min and 82% of HMF yield was achieved.