Authors
Ruoqian Li, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Gyu Leem, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Renewable technologies have been considered for biomass conversion. Deep eutectic solvent (DES) is a promising biomass processing solvent for fractionating lignin and xylan from biomass to maximize total biomass utilization. Along with the advantages of DES having recyclability and thermal stabilities, the natural deep eutectic solvent is composed of nature-derived constituents. Among them, lignin-derived monophenols can serve as hydrogen bonding donors to produce bio-based DESs to improve the quality of biomass pretreatment and sustainability of DES towards the circular economy system. In this study, the impacts of lignin-derived DESs on sugar maple were investigated using three different phenolic aldehyde-hydrogen bonding donors, such as 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, vanillin, and syringaldehyde, synthesized with choline chloride as a hydrogen bonding acceptor in DESs. The thermal properties of each DES including phase transition temperatures such as glass transition temperature, cold crystallization temperature, melting temperature, and onset temperature were measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The technical performance of each DES fractionation was evaluated with the chemical composition change and enzymatic digestibility of the fractionated cellulose-rich fraction.
