Monosaccharide Recovery from Peat and Peatified Wood by Ultrasonication Pretreatment and Hydrothermal Treatment

Abstract

Peat and peatified wood are significant carbohydrate resources in tropical rainforests. The carbohydrates of cellulose and hemicellulose are important sources of monosaccharides for both vital activities and industrial applications, such as furan production of furfural and hydroxymethyl furfural. Hydrothermal treatment at 200˚C and ultrasonic irradiation pretreatment were used to recover monosaccharides from the abovementioned resources. The monosaccharide recovery from peat was shown to be higher than that from peatified wood. The conversion to organic acids is considered to proceed rapidly because acids are always detected with monosaccharides. This conversion is outstripped by the organic acid-to-gas reaction for treatment times longer than 20 min. The monosaccharide recovery from peatified wood was improved by the ultrasonication pretreatment. It is considered that ultrasonic irradiation broke down lignin blockages, enabling water molecules to access the carbohydrates more easily in the subsequent hydrothermal treatment.