As the most abundant natural organic material on Earth, cellulose has been traditionally used in many different industries, such as the paper making industry, food industry, and pharmaceutical industry. Recently, interests on energy-related (e.g. fermentable sugar) and high-valued end-products (e.g. nanocrystalline cellulose), made from cellulose have increased rapidly due to an increasing need to replace fossil fuels with biorenewable sources. As a proven effective pretreatment, hot-water extraction removes hemicelluloses from hardwood in mild conditions. It results in the wood of higher porosity which exhibits faster and more efficient delignification, using different methods, including kraft and organosolv delignification, such as acetone-water-oxygen (AWO). In this report, comparative results obtained by enzymatic and acid hydrolysis of AWO-delignified unextracted and hot-water extracted sugar maple will be presented. Properties of the resultant nanocrystalline cellulose determined by solid C13 CP/MAS NMR and TEM will be discussed.

Acid and enzymatic hydrolysis of hot-water extracted delignified sugar maple

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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