Chemical pretreatment of wood chips: A comparative study of mild steam explosion and hot water extraction
Paper in proceeding, 2015

Pretreatment of wood is a prerequisite for an efficient separation and utilization of its building blocks in future biorefinery concepts. Inherent recalcitrance of the cellulose-hemicellulose-lignin matrix of the cell wall poses huge challenges on separation of these components and implies usually a need for a broad set of methods targeting different components and providing as well chemical as morphological alterations. Mild steam explosion and hot water extraction are examples of typical pre-treatment methods enabling extraction of hemicelluloses and facilitating further processing of wood. Both are based on autohydrolysis of lignocellulosic material at high temperatures, but involve generally different conditions, the most prominent difference being a rapid disintegrating discharge employed in the steam explosion treatment, rendering morphological changes and altering structure accessibility compared to the physically less disruptive hot-water extraction. In this study we compare the key features of both of these methods and present that their effects on wood are somewhat non-uniform.

Author

Joanna Wojtasz-Mucha

Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chemical Technology

Merima Hasani

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chemical Technology

Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)

Hans Theliander

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chemical Technology

Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)

NWBC 2015 - 6th Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference

341-347
978-951388353-9 (ISBN)

6th Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference, NWBC 2015
Helsinki, Finland,

Subject Categories

Wood Science

Polymer Technologies

Composite Science and Engineering

More information

Latest update

9/14/2020