Multi-angle laser light scattering (MALLS) was used to characterize birch kraft pulps with respect to their absolute molecular mass distributions (MMDs). The pulps were dissolved in lithium chloride/N,N-dimethylacetamide and separated by size exclusion chromatography (SEC). The weight-average and number-average molecular masses of the cellulose fractions of the pulps obtained from the absolute MALLS measurements were compared with the molar masses obtained by direct-standard-calibration relative pullulan standards. Discrepancies between the two detection methods were found, and two ways of correlating the relative pullulan molar masses to the absolute molar masses were examined. In the first method, the correlation was made over a large range of molecular masses. The second method correlated the molecular masses of the standards to the molecular masses of samples by the calculation of fictitious, cellulose-equivalent molar masses of the standards. With the preferred second method, a more correct MMD of kraft pulp samples could, therefore, be obtained from an SEC system calibrated with narrow standards.

Three kraft pulps in the kappa number range between 50 and 20 and the same pulps oxygen-delignified to similar lignin contents (kappa approximately 6) were analyzed for lignin-carbohydrate complexes (LCC) by a method based on selective enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulose, and quantitative fractionation of the LCC. Between 85 and 90% of residual lignin in the unbleached kraft pulp and all residual lignin in the oxygen-delignified pulps were isolated as LCC. Three types of complexes were found; viz., xylan-lignin, glucomannan-lignin-xylan and glucanlignin complexes. After pulping to a high kappa number, most of the residual lignin was linked to xylan. Different delignification rates were observed so that most of the residual lignin was linked to glucomannan when the pulping was extended to a low kappa number. With increasing degree of oxygen delignification, a similar trend in the delignification rates of LCC was observed so that the residual lignin was increasingly linked to glucomannan. Complex LCC network structures seemed to be degraded into simpler structures during delignification. The differences in delignification rates are discussed with reference to the solubility properties and structural differences of LCC, and to morphological aspects of the pulp.

ABSTRACT:A method for the characterization of the molar mass distributions (MMDs) of softwood kraft pulps dissolved in 0.5% lithium chloride (LiCl)/N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) by size exclusion chromatography is presented. The method is based on derivatization with ethyl isocyanate and the dissolution of samples in 8% LiCl/ DMAc. In this study, the derivatization of hardwood kraft pulps did not influence the MMD. In the case of softwood pulps, however, the derivatization decreased the proportion of the high-molecular-mass material and increased the proportion of the low-molecular-mass material, which resulted in a distribution similar to the MMD of a hardwood kraft pulp. The results suggest that associations between hemicellulose and cellulose in the softwood kraft pulp were ruptured during derivatization. This led to a more correct estimation of the MMD of derivatized softwood kraft pulps than obtained by the dissolution of nonderivatized samples. This new method offers several advantages over derivatization with phenyl isocyanate: a precipitation step is not necessary, it is possible to follow the lignin distribution in the samples, and the method allows very high levels of dissolution of softwood kraft pulps up to a number of around 50.

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