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By extracting lignin, pulp production can be increased without heavy investments in a new recovery boiler, the typical bottleneck of a pulp mill. The extraction is performed by using 0.20 and 0.15 weight equivalents of CO2 and H2SO4 respectively. Herein, we describe lignin esterification with fatty acids using benign reagents to generate a lignin ester mixable with gas oils. The esterification is accomplished by activating the fatty acid and lignin with acetic anhydride which can be regenerated from the acetic acid recycled in this reaction. The resulting mass balance ratio is fatty acid/lignin/acetic acid (2 : 1 : 0.1). This lignin ester can be hydroprocessed to generate hydrocarbons in gasoline, aviation, and diesel range. A 300‐hour continuous production of fuel was accomplished. By recirculating reagents from both the esterification step and applying a water gas shift reaction on off‐gases from the hydroprocessing, a favorable overall mass balance is realized., My my, hey hey, out of the black: By extracting Kraft lignin from black liquor, a pulp mill can increase the production of pulp without heavy investments. By a benign organocatalytic transformation, this lignin is converted into a lignin oil that and processed in a current oil refinery infrastructure to yield gasoline and aviation and diesel fuels.

Herein, a catalytic reductive fractionation of lignocellulose is presented using a heterogeneous cobalt catalyst and formic acid or formate as a hydrogen donor. The catalytic reductive fractionation of untreated birch wood yields monophenolic compounds in up to 34 wt % yield of total lignin, which corresponds to 76 % of the theoretical maximum yield. Model compound studies revealed that the main role of the cobalt catalyst is to stabilize the reactive intermediates formed during the organosolv pulping by transfer hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis reactions. Additionally, the cobalt catalyst is responsible for depolymerization reactions of lignin fragments through transfer hydrogenolysis reactions, which target the β-O-4' bond. The catalyst could be recycled three times with only negligible decrease in efficiency, showing the robustness of the system.

A series of phenolic bio-oil components were selectively hydrodearomatized by palladium on carbon into the corresponding ketones or alcohols in excellent yields using polymethylhydrosiloxane and wa ...