Lignocellulose Fractionation Using Recyclable Phosphoric Acid: Lignin, Cellulose, and Furfural Production

The conversion of lignocellulose into its building blocks and their further transformation into valuable platform chemicals (e. g., furfural) are key technologies to move towards the use of renewable resources. This paper explored the disentanglement of lignocellulose into hemicellulose‐derived suga...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:ChemSusChem 2021-02, Vol.14 (3), p.909-916
Main Authors: Weidener, Dennis, Leitner, Walter, Domínguez de María, Pablo, Klose, Holger, Grande, Philipp M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acids
biomass conversion
Catalysts
Cellulose
Fractionation
Furfural
Lignin
Lignocellulose
Phosphates
Phosphoric acid
Recovering
Renewable resources
Selectivity
Sugar
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 conversion of lignocellulose into its building blocks and their further transformation into valuable platform chemicals (e. g., furfural) are key technologies to move towards the use of renewable resources. This paper explored the disentanglement of lignocellulose into hemicellulose‐derived sugars, cellulose, and lignin in a biphasic solvent system (water/2‐methyltetrahydrofuran) using phosphoric acid as recyclable catalyst. Integrated with the biomass fractionation, in a second step hemicellulose‐derived sugars (mainly xylose) were converted to furfural, which was in situ extracted into 2‐methyltetrahydrofuran with high selectivity (70 %) and yield (56 wt %). To further increase the economic feasibility of the process, a downstream and recycling strategy enabled recovery of phosphoric acid without loss of process efficiency over four consecutive cycles. This outlines a more efficient and sustainable use of phosphoric acid as catalyst, as its inherent costs can be significantly lowered. Lignin, cellulose, and furfural: In a two‐step procedure, lignocellulose is first fractionated into lignin, cellulose, and monosaccharides to then synthesize furfural from the pentoses in the sugar hydrolyzate. Phosphoric acid is used as catalyst for the whole process and recycled over four cycles without loss in activity. The biphasic 2‐MTHF‐aqueous system allows for high selectivity, straightforward product separation, and downstream processing.
ISSN:1864-5631
1864-564X
DOI:10.1002/cssc.202002383