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Catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of alkali lignin at low temperature: Effect of acid and base catalysts on phenolic monomers production

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Abstract

Developing efficient process and technologies for the conversion of lignin into valuable functional chemicals is an important aspect of the biorefinery concept. In this study, the effect of low-cost base catalyst (NaOH, KOH, K2CO3 and Na2CO3) and acid catalyst formic acid (FA) was examined for the effective depolymerization of lignin into monomers of phenolic compounds at low temperatures (140, 160 and 180 °C). Also, different reaction residence time (30, 60 and 120 min.), catalyst amounts have been varied to optimize the liquefaction reaction conditions. In the case of non-catalytic experiments, maximum bio-oil yield (14.2 wt.%) was obtained at 160 °C for 30 min. reaction time. With K2CO3 catalysts, maximum bio-oil yield of 26.0 wt.% was observed, whereas in case of formic acid (FA) catalyst lignin depolymerization is very effective as it produced maximum bio-oil yield of 78.0 wt.%. Bio-oils were characterized using GC–MS, FT-IR, NMR analytical methods. Bio-oil analysis showed that it contained higher amount of phenolic monomers after lignin depolymerization. Higher amount of vanillin (41.9%) and isovanillin (44.9%) was found without catalyst and with FA liquefaction reaction. However with base catalyst, dibutyl phthalate (28.8%) was observed as the major compound in lignin depolymerization derived bio-oil. Solid residue analysis shows that base and acid catalyst depolymerized lignin in different ways by breaking of C-O and C–C bonds.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Director, CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun for his constant encouragement and support and AcSIR for granting permission to conduct this research work at CSIR-IIP. Bijoy Biswas thanks CSIR, New Delhi, India, for his Senior Research Fellowship (SRF). Authors thank the Analytical Science Division (ASD) of CSIR-IIP for the characterization support extended.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thermo-Catalytic Processes Area (TPA), Material Resource Efficiency Division (MRED), CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP), Dehradun, 248005, India

    Bijoy Biswas, Avnish Kumar, Komal Saini, Shivam Rawat, Ramandeep Kaur, Bhavya B. Krishna & Thallada Bhaskar

  2. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, 201002, India

    Bijoy Biswas, Avnish Kumar, Komal Saini, Shivam Rawat, Ramandeep Kaur, Bhavya B. Krishna & Thallada Bhaskar

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  1. Bijoy Biswas
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  2. Avnish Kumar
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  7. Thallada Bhaskar
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Contributions

Bijoy Biswas contributed to conceptualization, investigation, methodology, and writing—original draft; Avnish Kumar contributed to investigation; Komal Saini contributed to methodology; Shivam Rawat contributed to formal analysis; Ramandeep Kaur contributed to formal analysis; Bhavya B Krishna contributed to writing—review and editing; Thallada Bhaskar contributed to conceptualization, supervision, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Thallada Bhaskar.

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Biswas, B., Kumar, A., Saini, K. et al. Catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of alkali lignin at low temperature: Effect of acid and base catalysts on phenolic monomers production. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 14, 4071–4080 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-022-02603-0

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