6533b82afe1ef96bd128c387

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Semi-Continuous Lab-scale Plant for Hydrothermal or Organosolv Treatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass

subject

description

Lignocellulosic biomass is increasingly being considered as a potential alternative source for both fuels and goods production. In order to better address the starting material to higher conversion and selectivity in the desired products, the possibility to selectively control the dissolution of the three main constituents of the matrix (hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin) should be pursued. As the three biopolymers are intimately connected one another, a suitable pretreatment step could help the effectiveness of the whole process, by producing cleavage of the biomacromolecules interconnecting bonds and by starting their depolymerization . In this frame, we developed a semi-continuous lab-scale plant in which a fixed bed of comminuted biomass can be contacted in flow-through configuration with specific fluid streams at suitable temperature and pressure conditions This versatile plant allows performing different treatments, such as liquid hot water (LHW) or organosolv processes, and extractives recovery as well. Additional possible configurations, already implemented, allow the addition of CO2 as acid catalyst to the aqueous process stream, or performing steam explosion procedure. Together with the plant description, an overview of the first experimental results will be presented.