Authors:

Mateo Colorado Zapata

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About Paper:

Abstract: Lignin is a naturally occurring polymer found in many plants. The goal of this project is to break down lignin into phenolic monomers by cleaving the ?-0-4 linkage as well as produce a clean source of cellulose with the goal of creating cleaner sourced chemicals and safer products such as formaldehyde free laminate boards. Since lignin has strong C-O-C and C-C bonds, it is extremely difficult to break it down into smaller components, and for this purpose methanol is introduced as a supercritical fluid and solvent, as it helps to break the bonds by a nucleophilic mechanism. The reactions were carried out on both sawdust and corn stover samples with a catalyst that is Nickel on Activated Carbon, which is prepared by incipient wet impregnation using Nickel Nitrate Hexa-hydrate salt (Ni(NO3)2?6H2O). These reactions ocurred in a 100 and 600 milliliter Parr BSTR reactor, and were produced at temperatures ranging from 160 °C to 300 °C for both types of biomass. Samples from the reaction were analyzed via gas chromatography via flame ionization detection (GC-FID) as well as thermal capacitance detection, and from these results the reaction orders and activation energy for the depolymerization of lignin with nickel/activation carbon can be determined. The conclusions drawn from the data collection will allow future improvements of the depolymerization process. Keywords: Catalytic Depolymerization; Gas Chromatography; Sustainability

Source:

Purdue University / 2024

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Co-authors:

Mateo Colorado Zapata