Valorisation Of Hemicellulose By-products Via Antisolvent Precipitation in a Spinning Disc Reactor

Carr, T; Boodhoo, K; Russo, Abegão, F

doi:10.5071/31stEUBCE2023-6CV.7.6

Valorisation Of Hemicellulose By-products Via Antisolvent Precipitation in a Spinning Disc Reactor

Lookup NU author(s): Tom Carr, Professor Kamelia Boodhoo, Dr Fernando Russo Abegao ORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Abstract

Lignocellulosic biomass is an abundant source of polysaccharides, which can be converted into value-added products such as 5-hydroxymethylfurfural and furfural for use in biopolymers. Before this can happen, the sugars must be separated from other components in the lignocellulosic biomass and purified. This study presents a new method of separating hemicellulose from lignocellulosic biomass using antisolvent precipitation in a Spinning Disc Reactor (SDR) in a biorefinery.Ethanol, acetone and ammonium sulphate were assessed as antisolvents. While disc speed, flow rate and antisolvent concentrations were investigated with regards to hemicellulose yield, purity and particle size. It was found that the SDR overcame mass transfer limitations by demonstrating that only increasing antisolvent concentration increased product yield. The SDR also lowered the total residence time to less than 1 s and achieved higher product recoveries than a stirred tank reactor. Ethanol was found to be the most effective antisolvent as it had the highest recovery of solid particles (19.3% between 4-10 µm in diameter), with up to 90% sugar purity. Ammonium sulphate produced a product of low purity and acetone created an emulsion with no solid particles.