Scientists at the University of Delaware have developed a new technology that is simple, efficient, and cost-effective to break down lignocellulose from plant waste into sugar and convert it into biofuels.
Lignocellulose is a material that hardens and toughens wood and bark. It is a rich, inexpensive, renewable resource that is abundant in straw and sawdust and other agricultural and forestry waste. However, because it is difficult to decompose, the prior art generally needs to pretreat with high temperature and high pressure or strong acid and strong alkali, and then decompose with an expensive catalyst, which leads to high cost of making and taking out biofuel.
The core of the new technology is a special kind of catalyst whose composition is a concentrated inorganic salt solution containing cerium elements, which is enhanced by the oxide of niobium. As the wood material is soaked by the solution, it swells and becomes easily decomposed, like the newspaper is immersed in water. The unique nature of the catalyst allows it to directly decompose lignocellulose without the need for pretreatment, and it also requires less temperature.
In addition, after lignocellulose breaks down into sugar, it can be converted into furan by a dehydration reaction in the same container, which is a key molecule for the production of biofuels. In this process, the catalyst solution is recycled.
The research team reported in the US “Journal of Sustainable Chemistry†that the new technology can theoretically achieve a conversion rate of 95%. The reaction temperature is only 85 degrees Celsius and the time is as short as 1 hour, and there is less energy and water consumption.
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