ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering | 2019
Unveiling TMP Process Water Potential As an Industrial Sourcing of Valuable Lignin–Carbohydrate Complexes toward Zero-Waste Biorefineries
Abstract
The development of zero-waste biorefineries is a promising yet challenging pathway toward a sustainable bioeconomy. Deep insights on the composition of biorefineries side streams along with the development of green technologies are mandatory to achieve such a goal. In this Article, a sustainable pilot-scale membrane process was used to recover valuable organic matter dissolved in the main side stream of a thermomechanical pulping (TMP) plant. A great number of analytical tools were combined to get an extensive characterization of the generated fraction, including inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), high-performance ion chromatography coupled with pulse amperometric detection (HPIC-PAD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), and 13C and 2D heteronuclear single quantum correlation (HSQC) NMR. The results revealed the presence of a considerable amount of native lignin–carbohydrate complexes (LCCs) in the fraction representing 40% of the dry wei...