Lignin depolymerization/repolymerization and its critical role for delignification of aspen wood by steam explosion

Steam explosion is an important process for the fractionation of biomass components. In order to understand the behaviour of lignin under the conditions encountered in the steam explosion process, as well as in other types of steam treatment, aspen wood and isolated lignin from aspen were subjected to steam treatment under various conditions. The lignin portion was analyzed using NMR and size exclusion chromatography as major analytical techniques. Thereby, the competition between lignin depolymerization and repolymerization was revealed and the conditions required for these two types of reaction identified. Addition of a reactive phenol, 2-naphthol, was shown to inhibit the repolymerization reaction strongly, resulting in a highly improved delignification by subsequent solvent extraction and an extracted lignin of uniform structure.