Enhancing Lignin Dissolution and Extraction: The Effect of Surfactants

• Autor(a) principal: Melro, Elodie
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Valente, Artur J. M., Antunes, Filipe E., Romano, Anabela, Medronho, Bruno
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/105382; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13050714
• topic: dissolution; extraction; lignin; lignocellulosic waste; maritime pine; surfactants

The dissolution and extraction of lignin from biomass represents a great challenge due to the complex structure of this natural phenolic biopolymer. In this work, several surfactants (i.e., non-ionic, anionic, and cationic) were used as additives to enhance the dissolution efficiency of model lignin (kraft) and to boost lignin extraction from pine sawdust residues. To the best of our knowledge, cationic surfactants have never been systematically used for lignin dissolution. It was found that ca. 20 wt.% of kraft lignin is completely solubilized using 1 mol L1 octyltrimethylammonium bromide aqueous solution. A remarkable dissolution efficiency was also obtained using 0.5 mol L1 polysorbate 20. Furthermore, all surfactants used increased the lignin extraction with formic acid, even at low concentrations, such as 0.01 and 0.1 mol L1. Higher concentrations of cationic surfactants improve the extraction yield but the purity of extracted lignin decreases.