Rapid determination of furfural in biomass hydrolysate by full evaporation headspace gas chromatography

This paper reports a full evaporation (FE) headspace gas chromatographic (HS-GC) method for rapid determination of furfural in the biomass hydrolysate. The data show that a near-complete mass transfer of furfural in the sample from biomass hydrolysate to the vapor phase (headspace) was achieved within 3 min at 105°C when a very small (<40 μL) sample was added to a 20 mL headspace sample vial. The acid-catalyzed furfural decomposition under these conditions was negligible. The furfural in the vapor phase was then determined by HS-GC using a flame ionization detector. The results showed that the method has an excellent measurement precision (RSD<0.5%) and accuracy (recovery=100.2±1.7%) for furfural quantification in carbohydrate hydrolysate samples. The method requires no sample pretreatment, so it is simple, rapid and accurate, and suitable for applications in lignocellulosic biomass conversion to fuel ethanol or other high value-added products.