Abstract
Sugarcane bagasse cellulose was subjected to the extremely low acid (ELA) hydrolysis in 0.07% H2SO4 at 190, 210 and 225°C for various times. The cellulose residues from this process were characterized by TGA, XRD, GPC, FTIR and SEM. A kinetic study of thermal decomposition of the residues was also carried out, using the ASTM and Kissinger methods. The thermal studies revealed that residues of cellulose hydrolyzed at 190, 210 and 225°C for 80, 40 and 8min have initial decomposition temperature and activation energy for the main decomposition step similar to those of Avicel PH-101. XRD studies confirmed this finding by showing that these cellulose residues are similar to Avicel in crystallinity index and crystallite size in relation to the 110 and 200 planes. FTIR spectra revealed no significant changes in the cellulose chemical structure and analysis of SEM micrographs demonstrated that the particle size of the cellulose residues hydrolyzed at 190 and 210°C were similar to that of Avicel.
Highlights
Batch hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose by dilute acid hydrolysis results in yields limited to 60–65% of the potential glucose (Bouchard et al, 1989)
The starting cellulose pulp and the residues after hydrolysis were subjected to dynamic thermogravimetric analysis under a nitrogen atmosphere at four different heating rates, in order to determine the effects of hydrolysis time, temperature, degree of polymerization and crystallite size on thermal decomposition of cellulose
This study showed that the initial decomposition temperature (Ti) of cellulose residues after extremely low acid hydrolysis (ELA) increased as the degree of polymerization decreases and that this rise in Ti diminished as hydrolysis became more severe by increasing the reaction temperature from 190 to 225 ◦C
Summary
Batch hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose by dilute acid hydrolysis results in yields limited to 60–65% of the potential glucose (Bouchard et al, 1989). The U.S National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed a dilute acid hydrolysis process for lignocellulose biomass called extremely low acid (ELA) hydrolysis. The ELA conditions employ low sulphuric acid concentration (0.07 wt.%) and high temperatures in order to improve the yield of glucose. According to Kim et al (2001), there are distinct advantages of using extremely low acid (ELA) conditions for the hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass. One of them is that the corrosion characteristics of ELA conditions are very close to those of a neutral aqueous reaction, so that standard grade stainless steel equipment can be used instead of high nickel alloy, reducing equipment cost and maintenance. The advancement made in ELA has brought acid hydrolysis to a position where it can favorably
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