In this work an environmentally friendly hydrotropic process was used to extract lignin from industrial birch wood chips. Two hydrotropic treatments were performed, a conventional and a modified process. The lignins were characterized using FTIR, pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (pyrolysis-GC-MS), (31)P and (1)H-(13)C HSQC NMR, and size exclusion chromatography (SEC). The chemical (carbohydrates, extractives, etc.) and elemental compositions of the lignins were also determined. The yields of both lignins were 16.1% (dry wood basis), and the obtained lignins had very low contents of non-lignin compounds. The treatments resulted in significant changes of the structure of the lignins, a decrease in aliphatic hydroxyls and an increase in phenolic ones. The lignin isolated by the modified treatment underwent more substantial change than the reference one. It is believed that the data presented will facilitate utilization of hydrotropic lignin and promote the adoption of the hydrotropic process in the pulp and biorefinery industry.

Hydrotropic treatment is an attractive process that uses water-soluble and environmentally friendly chemicals. Currently, this method is practically unexploited on a large scale due to the long treatment times required. In this study, the hydrotropic process was modified by the addition of hydrogen peroxide, formic acid, or both. The modified treatments were more selective than the reference, and the pulps obtained using the modified treatments had lower lignin contents. After bleaching, the resultant pulps were comparable to dissolving pulps with respect to the content of hemicelluloses and viscosity. Cellulose solutions were successfully obtained in a 7% NaOH/12% urea aqueous solvent after pretreating the bleached pulp with a HCl/EtOH mixture. Hydrotropic lignin was recovered from the spent solution by precipitation in water. The lignin had very low contents of carbohydrates and sulphur. The preliminary results show that a hydrotropic process can be used for such biorefinery applications as fractionation of fibres, cellulose polymer, and lignin from birch wood. The green cellulose and lignin biopolymers can potentially be used for shaping biomaterials or production of biobased chemicals.

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Bagasse fiber has been used in the production of bleached chemical pulp by the Pars Paper Company. In this company, a conventional three-stage sequence of hypochlorite, alkaline extraction and second hypochlorite (HEH) is applied in pulp bleaching. Pulp bleaching is one of the most important environmental pollutant stages in the pulp and paper industry. In this research, the bleaching of soda bagasse pulp by applying Oxone and TAED-activator in non-chlorine bleaching sequences has been investigated. The unbleached pulp, with kappa number of 20, 955 ml/g viscosity and 37 % brightness, was prepared from Pars Paper Company. Results indicated that, the TAED at the first and second stages were more effective than in the Oxone stages. Moreover, the sequences, which contained TAED- and Oxone-second-stage, could reach the minimum level of kappa (1.7), but the highest brightness (80 %) was attained by using only TAED with a comparatively high level of pulp viscosity (752).