Original Articles
Zhen Liu, Hang Xu and Airong X
Abstract
Lignocellulose is the most abundant renewable resource in the earth. The main components of lignocellulose are cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. In order to separate lignocellulose, the selective dissolition performance for corn stalk using four ionic liquids(ILs) of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium formate ([BMIM][Fo]), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([BMIM][Ac]), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium propionate ([BMIM][Pr]) and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium dicyanamide ([BMIM][DCA]), was studied in this paper with temperature from 20oC to 140oC. The results show that the dissolution rate of corn stalk using different ILs increases with rise of temperature. At 140oC, [BMIM][Pr] has the strongest solubility for the cellulose and hemicellulose from corn stalk, up to 74.04% and 79.22%, respectively. [BMIM][DCA] has the strongest dissolving ability for lignin from corn stalk, up to 75.15%. Although the cellulose and hemicellules in corn stalk both have relatively low selectivity of dissolution in all the ILs, the coefficient of selective dissolution for the lignin from corn stalk is about 2.03 and shown a good separation performance in [BMIM][DCA] at 140oC.