This research is dedicated to the study on the formation of levoglucosenone and other main volatiles from the catalytic pyrolysis with the addition of phosphoric acid of birch wood and lignocelluloses obtained by birch wood hydrothermal treatment. Py-GC/MS/FID method was used to evaluate the contents of the main products. Lignocelluloses were found to be a more promising precursor to obtain levoglucosenone with lesser content of furfural: For birch wood and lignocelluloses hydrothermally treated at 150 and 180 °C, Py-GC/MS/FID revealed levoglucosenone yields of 12.83, 16.94 and 21.08%, correspondingly (at 5% phosphoric acid addition). When birch wood impregnated with 5% H 3 PO 4 was pyrolized in the laboratory screw-type reactor, the levoglucosenone yield was 6.5%. The composition and content of volatiles formed in analytical pyrolysis, bio-oil and its chloroform extract were compared. Extraction of bio-oil with chloroform and consequent distillation resulted in fractions containing 79.14% of levoglucosenone.
Global sustainability challenges prompt the world to modify its strategies and shift from a fossil-fuel-based economy to a bio-resources-based one and to the production of renewable biomass chemicals. Depolymerized suberinic acids (SA) were considered as an alternative resource to develop bio-polyols that can be further used in polyurethane (PU) material production. Birch (Betula pendula) outer bark was used as a raw material to obtain the SA, extracted with ethanol, and depolymerized with potassium hydroxide ethanol solution. By acidifying the filtrate to pH 5.0, 3.0, and 1.0 and drying it at 50 °C and 130 °C, 12 different SA potential feedstocks were obtained and characterized using chemical (total phenolics content, solubility in DMSO, acid, hydroxyl, and saponification number) and instrumental analytical methods (GC-MS, SEC-RID, DSC, and FTIR). Several bio-polyols were synthesized from the SA sample acidified to pH 1 and dried at 130 °C. Acid number and hydroxyl number values, the apparent viscosity and moisture content were measured. It was concluded that SA have a high enough saponification and acid value to investigate the polyol synthesis route via the esterification reaction. Moreover, SA had OH groups in their structure, which can be exploited for PU material development. The majority of SA compounds had relatively low molecular weight with <1300 Da that are suited for bio-polyol synthesis applied for rigid PU foam development. The synthesized bio-polyols had high hydroxyl number values necessary for bio-polyols to be used for rigid PU foam production.
Automated preparative scale solid phase extraction (SPE) has been used to separate levoglucosan – a valuable platform chemical from the liquid products of wood pyrolysis. The sorbent for SPE was a strongly basic anion exchange resin in OH-form. Separation of levoglucosan could be done with water as the eluent, the regeneration of the resin was done with a NaCl solution. Up-scaling the purification of levoglucosan is a step forward industrial production of this chemical.
Biomass, such as wood, is an important renewable raw material for the production of various products. Since one of the main constituents of wood is cellulose, a polysaccharide, fast pyrolysis of wood yields liquid products with a noteworthy content of sugars. The purpose of the present study was to develop a method for the chromatographic separation of valuable compounds, such as levoglucosan, from the complex mixture of wood pyrolysis products by using an ion exchange resin column.
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