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Updated: Nov 20, 2025
Extraction of Lignin with High β-O-4 Content by Mild Ethanol Extraction and Its Effect on the Depolymerization Yield
Published on: January 7, 2019
Separation of biobutanol from ABE fermentation broth using lignin as adsorbent: A totally sustainable approach with
Hao Li1, Haoyang Wang1, Osama M Darwesh2
1National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Energy Conservation of Chemical Process Integration and Resources Utilization, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, China.
Abstract:
Adsorption is considered to be a promising butanol recovery method for solving the issue of inhibition in the ABE (acetone-butanol-ethanol) fermentation. As a byproduct in the second generation biobutanol industry, lignin was found to be a good adsorbent for the butanol enrichment. It is conducive to the full utilization of renewable lignocellulose biomass resource. Kinetic and equilibrium experiments indicated that lignin had a satisfactory adsorption rate and capacity that are comparable to those of many synthetic materials. Multicomponent adsorption experiments revealed that lignin had higher adsorption selectivity toward butanol than that of ethanol and acetone. The adsorption capacity of lignin for butanol first increased and then gradually decreased with increasing temperature. And maximum adsorption capacity reached 304.66 mg g-1 at 313 K. The inflection point of temperature is close to the ABE fermentation temperature of 310 K. The condensed butanol by desorption was 145 g L-1, with a satisfying regeneration performance. 1H NMR and FT-IR spectra indicated that the aromatic units of lignin formed π-systems with A/B/E. The π-system is particularly significant for butanol due to its longer hydrocarbon chain. These results could contribute to the emerging lignin-based materials for butanol separation.
