Lignosulfonate was subjected to a reductive catalytic degradation in ethanol medium at 310 °C in the presence of alumina supported NiMo catalysts and H2. The liquid and solid products were analyzed with size exclusion chromatography (SEC), gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS), two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC × GC), heteronuclear single quantum coherence nuclear magnetic resonance (HSQC NMR) and elemental analysis. The highest oil yield and the lowest char yield obtained was 88 and 15 wt %, respectively. The liquefied species were mainly dimers and oligomers with minor yields of monomers. The catalyst was important for stabilization of reactive intermediates either by hydrogenation or coupling with ethanol. Simultaneous deoxygenation and desulfurization reactions took place in the presence of the catalyst; the oxygen and sulfur content in the oil fraction obtained after 4 h reaction time were 11.2 and 0.1 wt %, indicating considerable deoxygenation and desulfurization compared to the lignosulfonate feedstock (O, 30.8 wt %; S, 3.1 wt %). The effect of the reaction parameters such as temperature, reaction time and catalyst mass was studied. It was observed that by increasing the temperature from 260 to 310 °C the degradation increased, however, the SEC analysis showed that the degradation progressed only to a certain size range dimers to oligomers in the reaction temperatures studied. Investigating the effect of reaction time of 1, 2, 3, and 4 h indicated that degradation, deoxygenation, desulfurization and alkylation reactions progressed over time. The reusability of the catalyst without any pretreatment was confirmed by an almost constant oil yield in three repeated experiments with the same catalyst batch. The results show that alumina supported NiMo catalysts are very promising catalysts for conversion of lignosulfonate to liquid products.

The simulation of fermentation product separation using nanoporous membranes is presented. The aim of the simulation was to predict the performance of an extraction process to remove compounds from aqueous solutions. The simulation was conducted using computational fluid dynamics techniques for the solution of governing equations. The system studied was a membrane-based extractor of acetone from aqueous solutions using near-critical CO 2 as solvent. The predicted extraction percentages obtained by the simulations were compared to experimental values reported in the literature and showed very good agreement. The simulation can predict the concentration profile of acetone in the membrane and also predicts the formation of a concentration boundary layer.

Nanoporous LTA‐type zeolite membranes were synthesized on α‐Al2O3 disk as substrate using secondary growth method. A gel formula of 1 Al2O3: 2 SiO2: 3.4 Na2O: W H2O in molar basis was chosen while its water content (W) was varied. Four levels of water contents of 140, 155, 175, and 200 were selected for membrane synthesis. The results showed that the best membrane was synthesized with water content of 155. The most efficient zeolite membrane showed a permeation flux of 0.5 kg/m2/h and a separation factor of 3800 in dehydration of a 5/95 (wt%) water/isopropanol mixture at 298 K.

Lignin in biomass is degraded to a handful of chemicals in the presence of a NiMo/Al2O3 catalyst and ethanol medium.

In this study, reductive solvolysis of lignosulfonate using Ni-based catalysts in ethylene glycol (EG) and ethanol (EtOH) at 250 °C was investigated. The liquefied fractions, regarded as oil, were carefully analyzed using size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry with flame ionization detection (GC-MS-FID). The oil yields from catalytic conversion in EtOH and EG were similar, being 31 and 32 wt.%, respectively. The oil fractions from depolymerization in EtOH had lower molecular weight compared to the oil products in EG, indicating a higher degree of degradation of liquefied products in EtOH. On the other hand, EG showed superior activity in inhibiting condensation reactions; 16 and 46 wt.% tetrahydrofuran (THF) soluble and THF insoluble solid fractions were obtained from conversion in EtOH, while those numbers in EG were 45 and 23 wt.%, respectively. The Ni-based catalyst was introduced to provide active sites for hydrogenation of lignosulfonate fragments released into the solvent. The presence of NiS in the spent catalyst, formed from reaction between Ni and sulfur in the lignosulfonate, was confirmed. The sulfur content in the oil obtained in EtOH was 0.38 wt.%, which in comparison to lignosulfonate with 3.1 wt.% sulfur, indicated a high level of desulfurization.