Search

International audience; Two distinct lignocellulosic fractions (rind and core) can be obtained through a physical separation of sugarcane stalks. Although presenting differences in morphology, both fractions can be employed to produce pulps and papers. The pulps and paper sheets produced from the core and rind fractions were characterized by their chemical composition, physical properties and mechanical properties. The pulps obtained from the core presented a higher amount of fines, lower drainage ability and rendered denser and stiffer sheets. The pulps from the rind, which have a higher content of fibers and higher degree of polymerization, produced sheets with higher air permeability and water absorption. Both paper sheets presented mechanical and physical properties comparable to commercial papers and papers from different cellulosic sources. The different properties exhibited by the papers produced from each fraction allow their use for distinct purposes, and expands the opportunities in the context of sugarcane biorefinery.

Waste paper, a major fraction of municipal solid waste, has a potential to serve as renewable feedstock for the biorefineries of fuels, chemicals and materials due to rich in cellulose and abundant at low cost. This study evaluates the possibility of waste office paper (WOP) to serve as a potential feedstock for the biorefinery production of poly (3-hydroxybutyrate). In this study, the WOP was pretreated, enzymatically saccharified and the hydrolysate was used for PHB production. The hydrolysate mainly consists of glucose (22.70 g/L) and xylose (1.78 g/L) and the corresponding sugar yield was about 816 mg/g. Ammonium sulphate and C/N ratio 20 were identified as most favorable for high yield of PHB. The batch fermentation of Cupriavidus necator using the pretreated WOP hydrolysate resulted in cell biomass, PHB production and PHB content of 7.74 g/L, 4.45 g/L and 57.52%, respectively. The volumetric productivity and yield achieved were 0.061 g/L/h and 0.210 g/g sugar, respectively. The results suggested that WOP could be a potential alternative feedstock for the biorefinery production of bioplastics.

Pulp and paper mill wastewater contains lignin related synthetic, aromatic and chlorinated chemical compounds. Extracting lignin from pulp and paper mill wastewater is one way of recovering valuable organic material. Due to its complex structure, lignin is difficult to break and provides economical and technical provocations in biomass recovery. The conventional wastewater treatment processes are seldom efficacious for the complete removal of lignin from paper mill effluents. A wide range of thermal, mechanical and physico-chemical methods have been reported for the removal of lignin. Moreover, biological method of lignin removal employed microorganisms including bacteria and fungi as a one-step treatment and/or amalgamation of various physico-chemical techniques. Compared with other methods, biological process for degradation of lignin is regarded as eco-friendly, cost-effective and sustainable. Therefore, this review will provide insight into the recent breakthroughs and future trends in lignin removal with special emphasis on biological treatment and scope of lignin utilization.

The aim of this work was to study the impact of shortening kraft pulping (KP) process integrated with extended oxygen delignification (OD) on the biorefinery process performance of eucalyptus. Data showed that using kraft pulps with high kappa number could improve the delignification efficiency of OD, reduce hexenuronic acid formation in kraft pulps. Pulp viscosity for a target kappa number of ∼10 was comparable to that obtained from conventional KP and OD process. The energy and alkali consumption in the integrated biorefinery process could be optimized when using a KP pulp with kappa number of ∼27. The process could minimize the overall methanol formation, but greater amounts of carbonate and oxalate were formed. The information from this study will be helpful to the future implementation of short-time KP integrated with extended OD process in actual pulp mill applications for biorefinery, aiming at further improvement in the biorefinery effectiveness of hardwood.

The potential of cellulase enzymes in the developing and ongoing "biorefinery" industry has provided a great motivation to develop an efficient cellulase mixture. Recent work has shown how important the role that the so-called accessory enzymes can play in an effective enzymatic hydrolysis. In this study, three newest Novozymes Cellic CTec cellulase preparations (CTec 1/2/3) were compared to hydrolyze steam pretreated lignocellulosic substrates and model substances at an identical FPA loading. These cellulase preparations were found to display significantly different hydrolytic performances irrelevant with the FPA. And this difference was even observed on the filter paper itself when the FPA based assay was revisited. The analysis of specific enzyme activity in cellulase preparations demonstrated that different accessory enzymes were mainly responsible for the discrepancy of enzymatic hydrolysis between diversified substrates and various cellulases. Such the active role of accessory enzymes present in cellulase preparations was finally verified by supplementation with β-glucosidase, xylanase and lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases AA9. This paper provides new insights into the role of accessory enzymes, which can further provide a useful reference for the rational customization of cellulase cocktails in order to realize an efficient conversion of natural lignocellulosic substrates.

Lignin is the second most abundant biopolymer after cellulose. It has long been obtained as a by-product of cellulose production in pulp and paper production, but had rather low added-value applications. A changing paper market and the emergence of biorefinery projects should generate vast amounts of lignin with the potential of value addition. Nanomaterials offer unique properties and the preparation of lignin nanoparticles and other nanostructures has therefore gained interest as a promising technique to obtain value-added lignin products. Due to lignin’s high structural and chemical heterogeneity, methods must be adapted to these different types. This review focuses on the ability of different formation methods to cope with the huge variety of lignin types and points out which particle characteristics can be achieved by which method. The current research’s main focus is on pH and solvent-shifting methods where the latter can yield solid and hollow particles. Solvent shifting also showed the capability to cope with different lignin types and solvents and antisolvents, respectively. However, process conditions have to be adapted to every type of lignin and reduction of solvent demand or the integration in a biorefinery process chain must be focused.

Transforming plant biomass to biofuel is one of the few solutions that can truly sustain mankind's long-term needs for liquid transportation fuel with minimized environmental impact. However, despite decades of effort, commercial development of biomass-to-biofuel conversion processes is still not an economically viable proposition. Identifying value-added co-products along with the production of biofuel provides a key solution to overcoming this economic barrier. Lignin is the second most abundant component next to cellulose in almost all plant biomass; the emerging biomass refinery industry will inevitably generate an enormous amount of lignin. Development of selective biorefinery lignin-to-bioproducts conversion processes will play a pivotal role in significantly improving the economic feasibility and sustainability of biofuel production from renewable biomass. The urgency and importance of this endeavor has been increasingly recognized in the last few years. This paper reviews state-of-the-art oxidative lignin depolymerization chemistries employed in the papermaking process and oxidative catalysts that can be applied to biorefinery lignin to produce platform chemicals including phenolic compounds, dicarboxylic acids, and quinones in high selectivity and yield. The potential synergies of integrating new catalysts with commercial delignification chemistries are discussed. We hope the information will build on the existing body of knowledge to provide new insights towards developing practical and commercially viable lignin conversion technologies, enabling sustainable biofuel production from lignocellulosic biomass to be competitive with fossil fuel.

Growing interest in alternative and renewable energy sources has brought increasing attention to the integration of a pulp mill into a forest biorefinery, where other products could be produced in addition to pulp. To achieve this goal, hemicelluloses were extracted, either by steam explosion or by steam treatment, from Eucalyptus globulus wood prior to pulping. The effects of both pre-treatments in the subsequent kraft pulping and paper strength were evaluated. Results showed a similar degree of hemicelluloses extraction with both options (32-67% of pentosans), which increased with the severity of the conditions applied. Although both pre-treatments increased delignification during pulping, steam explosion was significantly better 12.9 kappa number vs 22.6 for similar steam unexploded pulps and 40.7 for control pulp. Finally, similar reductions in paper strength were found regardless of the type of treatment and conditions assayed, which is attributed to the increase of curled and kinked fibers. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

A trihybrid clone of Paulownia fortunei x tormentosa x elongata was used for pulp and paper production using the soda-anthraquinone (AQ) process, comparing the results with those from Paulownia fortunei. An autohydrolysis process had been previously carried out on this raw material. A composite central experimental design and a multiple regression were used for modeling and optimizing the process. A valuable liquid phase could be obtained from the autohydrolysis process of Paulownia, trying to minimize cellulose degradation for pulp and paper production. A compromise to maximize the glucan and minimize the xylan contents in the postautohydrolysis solid phase could be achieved at 187.5ºC and 15 minutes. A suitable cellulosic pulp with kappa number ranging from 12.2 to 69.2 and ISO brightness from 18.2 to 30.6% presented better results than those from other studies. Regarding handsheets physical properties (tensile index 37.3 N·m/g ) and viscosity (848 cm3/g), significant improvements could be obtained when compared with previous results of a similar process using Paulownia fortunei or Paulownia elongata.

Black liquor gasification (BLG) has potential to replace a Tomlinson recovery boiler as an alternative technology to increase safety, flexibility and energy efficiency of pulp and paper mills. This paper presents an extensive literature review of the research and development of various BLG technologies over recent years based on low and high temperature gasification that include SCA-Billerud process, Manufacturing and Technology Conversion International (MTCI) process, direct alkali regeneration system (DARS), BLG with direct causticization, Chemrec BLG system, and catalytic hydrothermal BLG. A few technologies were tested on pilot scale but most of them were abandoned due to technical inferiority and very fewer are now at commercial stage. The drivers for the commercialization of BLG enabling bio-refinery operations at modern pulp mills, co-producing pulp and value added energy products, are discussed. In addition, the potential areas of research and development in BLG required to solve the critical issues and to fill research knowledge gaps are addressed and highlighted.

Pulp and paper mills represent a major platform to use more effectively an abundant, renewable bio-resource – wood. Modification of the modern day pulp mills into integrated forest biorefineries (IFBR) presents an excellent opportunity to produce, in addition to valuable cellulose fiber, co-products including fuel grade ethanol and additional energy, thus resulting in increased revenue streams and profitability and potentially lower the greenhouse gas emissions. A process model to simulate the integrate forest biorefinery manufacturing pulp and other co-products has been developed. This model has been used to compare three integrated biorefinery scenarios: the conventional Kraft pulping process, the pulp mill-based IFBR with hemicelluloses extraction prior to pulping for ethanol production, and the pulp mill-based IFBR with both pre-extracted hemicelluloses and the short fiber for ethanol production. Based on a fixed feedstock throughput of 2000 dry Mg wood/day, results show that the pulp mill-based IFBR with both pre-extracted hemicelluloses and the short fiber cellulose converted to ethanol can produce 0.038 MM m3 (10.04 MM gal) ethanol per year at a minimum ethanol selling price (MESP) of $491/m3 ($1.86/gal). The economic feasibility of IFBR can be further improved by using further improvements in the pre-extraction process, other biomass such as corn stover for producing ethanol, and taking advantage of the economies of scale.

The study was conducted to evaluate the quality of dissolving pulp of Musa sapientum L. (banana) plant stem and its potential for biorefinery. Introduction of pre-hydrolysis prior to any alkaline pulping process helps to reduce the content of hemicellulose and consequently produce acceptably high content of cellulose pulp. Water pre-hydrolysis was done at 150 °C for 90 min. The amount of lignin, xylan and glucan in the extracted pre-hydrolysis liquor (PHL) was 1.6, 4.9 and 1.6%, respectively. Pulping of pre-extracted chips was done following soda-AQ, alkaline sulfite and kraft process. The ratio of chip to liquor was 1:7 for both pre-hydrolysis and pulping. The kraft pulping process with 20% active alkali and 25% sulfidity at 150 °C for 90 min showed the best result. The lowest kappa number was 26.2 with a considerable pulp yield of 32.7%. The pulp was bleached by acidic NaClO2 and the consistency was 10% based on air-dried pulp. The lowest amount of 7% NaClO2 was used for the bleaching sequence of D0ED1ED2. After D0ED1ED2 bleaching, the pulp showed that α-cellulose, brightness and ash were 91.9, 77.9 and 1.6% respectively. The viscosity was 19.9 cP. Hence, there is a possibility to use banana plant stem as a raw material for dissolving grade pulp and other bioproducts.

The paper and pulp industry is one of the major industries that generate large amount of solid waste with high moisture content. Numerous opportunities exist for valorisation of waste paper sludge, although this review focuses on primary sludge with high cellulose content. The most mature options for paper sludge valorisation are fermentation, anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis. In this review, biochemical and thermal processes are considered individually and also as integrated biorefinery. The objective of integrated biorefinery is to reduce or avoid paper sludge disposal by landfilling, water reclamation and value addition. Assessment of selected processes for biorefinery varies from a detailed analysis of a single process to high level optimisation and integration of the processes, which allow the initial assessment and comparison of technologies. This data can be used to provide key stakeholders with a roadmap of technologies that can generate economic benefits, and reduce carbon wastage and pollution load.

This paper reports the continuous reductive amination of different molecules, including biomass-related compounds, over carbon-supported FeNi nanoparticles obtained on the basis of inexpensive and abundant metal precursors and cellulose. A biorefinery case study for the preparation of pyrrolidones via acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of glucose followed by reductive amination of the obtained levulinic acid is described.

The effectiveness of a biorefinery based on an HWE–Kraft–ECF bleaching process and the end use of pulp was systematically evaluated. Using a P-factor of 198, nearly 30% of xylan-based sugars were recovered. The resulting pulp and paper properties were found to be comparable with the control. A maximum xylan-based sugar recovery of nearly 50% was achieved at a P-factor of 738. Although the strength of this P-factor induced handsheet was lower than that of the control by about 20%, the corresponding pulp was sufficient for dissolving pulp application. However, once the P-factor rose above 1189, hemicellulose sugars were significantly degraded into furans; pulp and paper properties were also deteriorated due to cellulose degradation, lignin deposition and condensation. Thus, considering the different end use of pulps, the performance of an HWE-based biorefinery could be balanced by its HWE severity.

The commercial pre-hydrolysis kraft-based dissolving pulp production process can be a typical example for the demonstration/implementation of the integrated forest biorefinery concept. In this study, the concept of cellulase treatment of this dissolving pulp for enhancement of accessibility/reactivity in terms of viscose rayon production was demonstrated. The cellulase treatment resulted in the formation of additional openings/surface areas in the fiber structure via the possible action of "etching". As a result, the pore volume of pulp fibers increased, which led to the increase in the accessibility to xanthation, and thus Fock reactivity. Results showed that the cellulase treatment was effective in increasing the Fock reactivity, at a cellulase dosage of 2u/g (based on the dry weight of pulp), the Fock reactivity increased from 47.67% to 79.9%. The adoption of cellulase treatment to hardwood kraft-based dissolving pulp can provide an efficient approach for enhancing its performance in the commercial viscose-rayon process.

To test a biorefinery concept, the non-wood biomass of Eulaliopsis binata was treated with dilute acid prior to dissolving pulp production at 160 °C for 30 min. The pretreatment liquor (PL) contained 42.04 g/L sugars, of which 81.46% was xylose and only 2.91% was glucose. Furfural and hydroxymethylfurfural in PL were 0.37% and 0.06%, respectively. Chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis of carbohydrates could be omitted when producing bioethanol with PL because 87.32% of the total sugars were in the form of monosaccharides. Membrane filtration with a molecular-weight cut-off of 100 Da was employed to concentrate the sugars and a concentration of 170.49 g/L was achieved. A method of zero release of the PL is proposed, which consists of ethanol production from the concentrated PL and recycling the permeate stream into the pretreatment process.

Biomaterials from olive tree pruning are an abundant agricultural residue in various Mediterranean regions. A suggested use of this residue is its separation in a main fraction (trunks and stems with diameter > 1 cm) and a residual fraction (leaves and stems with diameter 1 < cm), using biorefinery procedures. The main fraction is cooked with ethanol, giving rise to a pulp, which can be used either in paper or in bioethanol production if before pulping the main fraction is subjected to a hydrothermal treatment. Pulping with 70% ethanol concentration, 185 °C for 80 min resulted in a pulp with a yield of 46.30% and a content of holocellulose, α-cellulose, and lignin of 77.17%, 62.49%, and 21.73%, respectively. The paper sheets obtained had a breaking length of 1168 m, a burst index of 0.44 kN /g, a tear index of 2.25 mN.m2/g, and a brightness of 43.66%. The pulp converted into bioethanol (by simultaneous hydrolysis and fermentation) achieved a conversion of 70 g bioethanol/100 g potential bioethanol. The residual fraction of olive tree prunings was subjected to combustion to produce thermal energy. The heating value was 18700 kJ/kg, the flame temperature range was 1094 to 2013 ºC, and the dew point temperature range of the flue gases was 47 to 53 °C.

In this work, isolation of the cellulose fibres was carried out via the Feedstock Impregnation Rapid and Sequential Steam Treatment process (FIRSST). The latter allows the separation of extractives, hemicellulosic sugars and lignin isolating the cellulose fibres. Quantitative data on the constitutive macromolecules of biomass was obtained using ASTM or TAPPI standard methods. Carbohydrates found in the hemicelluloses were also quantified using HPLC. Kraft pulp from whole biomass has also been produced at a bench scale (few kg per batch) using known and established pulping conditions. The pulps from both pulping techniques were tested following ATTPC standard methods. Pulp yields were of 34% for the classical Kraft processes (using whole biomass) while the FIRSST process showed yields around 30%. The average fibre lengths were similar for FIRSST pulp (0.39 mm) and Kraft pulp (0.41 mm) and the mechanical properties of the FIRSST pulp were as good as those of the Kraft pulp.

There is great interest in developing black liquor gasification technology over recent years for efficient recovery of bio-based residues in chemical pulp mills. Two potential technologies of producing dimethyl ether (DME) and methane (CH(4)) as alternative fuels from black liquor gasification integrated with the pulp mill have been studied and compared in this paper. System performance is evaluated based on: (i) comparison with the reference pulp mill, (ii) fuel to product efficiency (FTPE) and (iii) biofuel production potential (BPP). The comparison with the reference mill shows that black liquor to biofuel route will add a highly significant new revenue stream to the pulp industry. The results indicate a large potential of DME and CH(4) production globally in terms of black liquor availability. BPP and FTPE of CH(4) production is higher than DME due to more optimized integration with the pulping process and elimination of evaporation unit in the pulp mill.

A forest biorefinery configuration employing a hemicellulose pre-pulping extraction is being investigated that will retain pulp yields, reduce the organic and inorganic load for liquor recovery, and create a hemicellulose feed stream for the generation of biofuels and biomaterials. Current efforts are focused on developing extract production and conditioning processes that will result in fermentable sugars suitable for conversion to fuel alcohols or organic acid chemical products. As efforts move the process closer to commercial demonstration, it is apparent that a high level of confidence is needed in the analysis of the partitioning of fresh wood into its extracted wood and liquid extract fractions. Of particular interest is the partitioning of the carbohydrates, as these constitute the feedstock for bioconversion to fuels and chemicals. The extraction method employed utilizes green liquor derived from the kraft pulping process for pretreatment of the woodchips. To enable analysis, green liquor extraction was followed by 4% sulfuric acid hydrolysis to complete hydrolysis of the oligomers that were still present. High performance anion-exchange chromatography (HPAEC-PAD) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods were used to analyze the carbohydrates in northern hardwood and its extract fractions. The Bio-Rad Aminex HPX-87H column did not separate mannose, xylose, and galactose, but the area of the collective peak corresponds well to the sum of these components as measured by HPAEC. In addition to sugars, standard methods were employed for quantification of the individual components (e.g., lignin, ash, nitrogen, carbon, extractives, uronic and acetic acid). The analytical mass balance closure was 102.2% and 103.6% for raw wood, 99.3% and 102.3% for extracted wood, and 94.7% and 95.6% for hemicellulose extract from the HPAEC and HPLC, respectively. The extraction mass balance was 96.9% and 98.2% for HPAEC and HPLC, respectively. The data generated by this analysis are important to further design work in commercializing the pulp and biorefinery processes.

Industrial production of bioethanol from fibers that are unusable for pulp production in pulp mills offers an approach to product diversification and more efficient exploitation of the raw material. In an attempt to utilize fibers flowing to the biological waste treatment, selected fiber sludges from three different pulp mills were collected, chemically analyzed, enzymatically hydrolyzed, and fermented for bioethanol production. Another aim was to produce solid residues with higher heat values than those of the original fiber sludges to gain a better fuel for combustion. The glucan content ranged between 32 and 66% of the dry matter. The lignin content varied considerably (1–25%), as did the content of wood extractives (0.2–5.8%). Hydrolysates obtained using enzymatic hydrolysis were found to be readily fermentable using Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Hydrolysis resulted in improved heat values compared with corresponding untreated fiber sludges. Oligomeric xylan fragments in the solid residue obtained after enzymatic hydrolysis were identified using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight and their potential as a new product of a pulp mill-based biorefinery is discussed.