Sustainable Electrochemical Depolymerization of Lignin in Reusable Ionic Liquids

Lignin’s aromatic building blocks provide a chemical resource that is, in theory, ideal for substitution of aromatic petrochemicals. Moreover, degradation and valorization of lignin has the potential to generate many high-value chemicals for technical applications. In this study, electrochemical deg...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2017-07, Vol.7 (1), p.5041-12, Article 5041
Main Authors: Dier, Tobias K. F., Rauber, Daniel, Durneata, Dan, Hempelmann, Rolf, Volmer, Dietrich A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/638/11
639/638/224/906
639/638/675
Chromatography
Depolymerization
Electrochemistry
Electrolysis
Electrolytes
Gas chromatography
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hydrogen peroxide
Ions
Lignin
Liquid chromatography
Mass spectrometry
Mass spectroscopy
Molecular weight
multidisciplinary
Petrochemicals
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Scientific imaging
Water pollution
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Summary:Lignin’s aromatic building blocks provide a chemical resource that is, in theory, ideal for substitution of aromatic petrochemicals. Moreover, degradation and valorization of lignin has the potential to generate many high-value chemicals for technical applications. In this study, electrochemical degradation of alkali and Organosolv lignin was performed using the ionic liquids 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethanesulfonate and triethylammonium methanesulfonate. The extensive degradation of the investigated lignins with simultaneous almost full recovery of the electrolyte materials provided a sustainable alternative to more common lignin degradation processes. We demonstrate here that both the presence (and the absence) of water during electrolysis and proton transport reactions had significant impact on the degradation efficiency. Hydrogen peroxide radical formation promoted certain electrochemical mechanisms in electrolyte systems “contaminated” with water and increased yields of low molecular weight products significantly. The proposed mechanisms were tentatively confirmed by determining product distributions using a combination of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and gas-chromatography-mass spectrometry, allowing measurement of both polar v ersus non-polar as well as volatile versus non-volatile components in the mixtures.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-05316-x