Chang Geun Yoo, State University of New York College of Environmen
As the depletion of petroleum has become a major issue, lignocellulosic biomass has been promoted as an environmentally friendly alternative. In order to utilize biomass effectively, a pretreatment step is essential. Various solvents and catalysts have been explored to enhance the pretreatment efficiency. Among them, renewable deep eutectic solvents (DESs), which consist of hydrogen bond acceptor (HBA) and hydrogen bond donor (HBD), are gaining attention due to their environmental benefits. In particular, the use of natural-derived HBA and HBD can contribute to the circular biorefinery.
One of the challenges of many renewable DESs is their limited processibility due to their high viscosity. In this study, we examined the biomass pretreatment using renewable DESs, where lignin-derived-3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHBA) acts as HBD with different co-solvents such as butanediol and ethylene glycol. The prepared ternary DESs were characterized by their physical and thermal properties. The technical performance of each DES was evaluated with fractionation performances like delignification, xylan removal and enzymatic digestibility. This study also highlights a closed-loop biorefinery approach for biomass by recycling lignin-derived components for renewable applications and its enhancement by introducing co-solvents.
