Study on Soda–Ethanol Delignification of Pine Sawdust for a Biorefinery

The soda–ethanol process was conceived as a sulfur-free pulping process, which may also be an alternative to conventional alkaline pulping, such as kraft or soda–AQ in the biorefinery context. An in-depth study using two experimental designs was conducted to establish the viability of soda–ethanol d...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2022-06, Vol.14 (11), p.6660
Main Authors: Imlauer Vedoya, Camila María, Area, María Cristina, Raffaeli, Natalia, Felissia, Fernando Esteban
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acetaldehyde
Alcohol
Alcohol, Denatured
Biomass
Carbohydrates
Chemicals
Cooking
Design of experiments
Ethanol
Experimental design
Experiments
Factorial design
Fractionation
Lignin
Liquor
Pine
Pine trees
Plastics
Pulping
Sawdust
Selectivity
Solvents
Sulfur
Sustainability
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The soda–ethanol process was conceived as a sulfur-free pulping process, which may also be an alternative to conventional alkaline pulping, such as kraft or soda–AQ in the biorefinery context. An in-depth study using two experimental designs was conducted to establish the viability of soda–ethanol delignification of pine sawdust. At first, a simple factorial design involving the ethanol–water ratio (ethanol:water) and the alkaline load (AL, % over dry wood, odw) was applied to define the levels of these variables and their eventual interaction. Then, a 32 experimental design was performed to evaluate the ability of the process concerning the pulping of pine sawdust. The tested conditions were carefully selected to screen a broad range of cooking times (60, 100, and 140 min) and alkaline loads (19.0, 23.3, and 27.6 %odw) to obtain pulps with different extents of delignification (residual lignin contents). Finally, the kraft, soda–AQ, and soda–ethanol treatments were compared. Soda–ethanol pulping was shown to be a suitable delignification stage for a biorefinery scheme of Pinus elliottii and Pinus taeda sawdust. It has many advantages over traditional processes regarding its environmental impact, harmless chemicals, and selectivity. The tested conditions were similar to those frequently used in conventional pulping at an industrial scale, suggesting the technical feasibility of the soda–ethanol process for pine sawdust processing.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su14116660