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Updated: Jun 20, 2026
Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass with Low-cost Ionic Liquids
Published on: August 10, 2016
Structural characterization and comparison of switchgrass ball-milled lignin before and after dilute acid
Reichel Samuel1, Yunqiao Pu, Babu Raman
1School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Abstract:
To reduce the recalcitrance and enhance enzymatic activity, dilute H(2)SO(4) pretreatment was carried out on Alamo switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Ball-milled lignin was isolated from switchgrass before and after pretreatment. Its structure was characterized by (13)C, HSQC, and (31)P NMR spectroscopy. It was confirmed that ball-milled switchgrass lignin is of HGS type with a considerable amount of p-coumarate and felurate esters of lignin. The major ball-milled lignin interunit was the beta-O-4 linkage, and a minor amount of phenylcoumarin, resinol, and spirodienone units were also present. As a result of the acid pretreatment, there was 36% decrease of beta-O-4 linkage observed. In addition to these changes, the S/G ratio decreases from 0.80 to 0.53.
