The aim of this study is to establish prediction models for the non-destructive evaluation of the carbonization characteristics of lignin-derived hydrochars as a carbon material in real time. Hydrochars are produced via the hydrothermal carbonization of kraft lignins for 1–5 h in the temperature range of 175–250 °C, and as the reaction severity of hydrothermal carbonization increases, the hydrochar is converted to a more carbon-intensive structure. Principal component analysis using near-infrared spectra suggests that the spectral regions at 2132 and 2267 nm assigned to lignins and 1449 nm assigned to phenolic groups of lignins are informative bands that indicate the carbonization degree. Partial least squares regression models trained with near-infrared spectra accurately predicts the carbon content, oxygen/carbon, and hydrogen/carbon ratios with high coefficients of determination and low root mean square errors. The established models demonstrate better prediction than ordinary least squares regression models.
In this paper, we investigated the carbonization characteristics of lignin hydrochar prepared by hydrothermal carbonization and established a model for predicting the carbonization degree using near-infrared spectroscopy and partial least squares regression. The carbon content of the hydrothermally carbonized lignin at the temperature of 200 ℃ was higher by approximately 3 wt% than that of the untreated sample, and the carbon content tended to gradually increase as the heating time increased. Hydrothermal carbonization made lignin more carbon-intensive and more homogeneous by eliminating the microparticles. The discriminant and predictive models using near-infrared spectroscopy and partial least squares regression approppriately determined whether hydrothermal carbonization has been applied and predicted the carbon content of hydrothermal carbonized lignin with high accuracy. In this study, we confirmed that we can quickly and nondestructively predict the carbonization characteristics of lignin hydrochar manufactured by hydrothermal carbonization using a partial least squares regression model combined with near-infrared spectroscopy.
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