Effect of wheat straw autohydrolysis on hemicellulose and lignin

What is it about?

Hydrothermal pretreatments are preferred in pilot- and commercial scale lignocellulosic biorefeneries that produce i.e. fuel-grade ethanol. Lignocellulose is composed of three main components, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The current paper describes effect of pretreatment severity on hemicellulose and lignin. Beyond optimum severity hemicellulose was degraded to material that resembled lignin. So-called pseudo-lignin thus produced may give artificially high lignin content in solids.

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Why is it important?

Generation of pseudo-lignin should be more carefully followed because many chemical analyses of lignin are made based on lignin content in solid fractions. Artificially high content of i.e. acid-insoluble lignin in solid fractions may lead to wrong conclusions regarding lignin structure. This is important because value-added use is currently sought for lignin for instance in material applications. Better understanding of properties of industrial lignins would facilitate this development.