0000000000529145
AUTHOR
Maria Grazia Valenti
Ring opening polymerization of $\varepsilon$-caprolactone in the presence of wet $\beta$-cyclodextrin: Effect of the operative pressure and of water molecules in the $\beta$-cyclodextrin cavity
International audience; The ring opening polymerization (ROP) of $\varepsilon$-caprolactone (CL) in the presence of $\beta$-cyclodextrin ($\beta$-CD) wasperformed in batch reactors both at room pressure and with the reaction system pressurized with CO$_2$, N$_2$ orAr. Significant enhancements of the polymerization rate was observed when the ROP was carried out withwet $\beta$-CD under pressure. For example, after 24 hours at 120° C with a $\beta$-CD/CL molar ratio of about1/100, the monomer conversion increased from 4 to 98–99% when the pressure was changed from 0.1to 12.5–13.0 MPa independent of the nature of the compressing gas. MALDI-TOF analyses indicated thata major fraction of polymer…
Autohydrolysis pretreatment of Arundo donax: a comparison between microwave-assisted batch and fast heating rate flow-through reaction systems
Background: Autohydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass in liquid hot water has been widely studied owing to its high efficiency and relatively low cost. In the perspective of industrial applications, continuous or semi-continuous processes are more interesting than batch systems. Moreover, microwave heating of pretreatment systems has been proposed to intensify the kinetics of the process. In this study, the autohydrolysis of Arundo donax was performed in pure liquid hot water using a microwave-heated batch reactor and a semi-continuous flow-through reaction system with fast heating rate at the same operating conditions with the aim of performing a systematic comparison between the two diffe…