Corncob Fractionations Toward Two Purposes: Furfural Production and Papermaking.

Burning corncob for energy requirements caused a huge waste of biomass resources and serious environment pollution. Herein, this study provided a high-value utilization strategy for corncob. Corncob was first pretreated by hydrothermal process. The collected hydrolysates were converted into furfural by a recyclable solid acid with a yield of 52.35%. The pretreated solid was disintegrated into fibers by disc grinding. When corncob fiber addition is below 15%, the ring crush index, tear index, and tensile strength index of the prepared handsheets increased by 1.43 N·m/g, 0.43 mN·m2/g, and 4.66 N·m/g, respectively, compared with that using pure softwood fibers. Besides, corncob fibers were hydrophilically modified with aminosulfonic acid. Water retention value of paper with the modified fiber addition increased by 48.35%. Therefore, this study provided a method of corncob utilization toward two purposes: furfural production and papermaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]