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This work investigated the feasibility of recovering and concentrating sugars and acetic acid (HAc) from prehydrolysis liquor (PHL) of the kraft-based dissolving pulp process prior to fermentation of hemicellulosic sugars, by the combination of activated carbon adsorption, nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) processes. To reduce the fouling PHL was subjected to adsorption on activated carbon, then the treated PHL (TPHL) passed through a nanofiltration (NF DK) membrane to retain the sugars, and the permeate of acetic acid rich solution was passed through a reverse osmosis membrane (RO SG). It was found that for NF process sugars were concentrated from 48 to 227g/L at a volume reduction factor (VRF) of 5 while 80 to 90% of acetic acid was permeated. For the reverse osmosis process, 68% of acetic acid retention was achieved at pH 4.3 and 500 psi pressure and the HAc concentration increased from 10 to 50g/L., (Crown Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Acetic acid was one of the main compositions of the pre-hydrolysis liquor (PHL), which was recovered by reactive extraction with triisooctylamine (TIOA) diluted with decanol. Dilution of TIOA played an important role in extracting acetic acid from the PHL. The recovery of acetic acid from the PHL by TIOA was increased from 10.34% to 66.60% with the dilution of TIOA to 20% by decanol at the HAc to TIOA molar ratio of 1, consequently, the equilibrium distribution coefficient KD increased. The effects of time, temperature and pH on the extraction process were also studied. The extraction process was very fast. The acetic acid extraction decreased from 65.13% to 57.34% with the rise of temperature to 50°C from 20°C. A higher pH increased the dissociation of acetic acid, as a result, decreased acetic acid extraction. The hemicelluloses in the PHL were unaffected on the extraction process of acetic acid., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this study, cornstalk was pretreated by an acid-chlorite delignification procedure to enhance the conversion of cornstalk to bio-oil in hot-compressed water liquefaction. The effects of the pretreatment conditions on the compositional and structural changes of the cornstalk and bio-oil yield were investigated. It was found that acid-chlorite pretreatment changed the main components and physical structures of cornstalk and effectively enhanced the bio-oil yield. Shorter residence time favored production of the total bio-oil products, whereas longer time led to cracking of the products. A high water loading was found to be favorable for high yields of total bio-oil and water-soluble oil. GC-MS analysis showed that the water-soluble oil and heavy oil were the complicated products of C(5-10) and C(8-11) organic compounds.

Two types of pure cellulose, Avicel PH-101 and Whatman filter paper, were treated with an acid-chlorite delignification procedure in the presence of varying amounts of incorporated lignin, and the molecular weight distributions and degrees of polymerization (DP) of derivatized cellulose were determined by gel permeation chromatography (GPC). Avicel samples with 0% added lignin showed a DP reduction of nearly 5% during acid-chlorite delignification, compared to a 1% drop in DP with 30% added lignin. Lignin-free filter paper samples showed a DP reduction of nearly 35% after hollocellulose delignification. This drop in DP was reduced to less than 12% for samples which contained 30% lignin. Thus, the presence of lignin in biomass samples minimized the DP reduction of cellulose due to acid catalyzed cleavage during acid-chlorite delignification., (Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)