Synthesis and Characterization of Lignin Grafting Modification-based Aliphatic Superplasticizer

Abstract

Lignin as the main component of black liquor is generally employed to modify aliphatic superplasticizer (AFS). However, the modification effect is hard to evaluate correctly due to the uncertain molecular structure of lignin and the disturbance from the complexity of black liquor compositions. In this paper, the purified lignin via acid precipitation from straw black liquor is used to modify AFS. The modified AFS named as LAFS for short presents lower molecular mass than AFS. It is assumed that it is due to the single active site of guaiacol segments in lignin by which lignin graft modifies AFS in virtue of methylolation reaction. In order to verify this assumption, guaiacol and dihydro eugenol as the typical segments of lignin macromolecule were selected, respectively, as the simplified model compounds of lignin to modify AFS, and corresponding products are abbreviated in GAFS and DAFS. Both GAFS and DAFS show the lower molecular mass than unmodified AFS. FTIR and TG-DTG analyses prove that lignin is successfully grafted onto AFS. The graft modification of lignin results in a decrease in electrostatic epulsion, but an enhanced steric hindrance. Therefore, although the replacement rate of lignin in LAFS was about 23.3%, the dispersion performance was only slightly affected.