Effectiveness of Ethanol Pulping of Steam-Exploded Reed

Abstract

The depletion of fossil fuels necessitates the development of effective utilization technologies for lignocellulosic biomass to secure the future of mankind. The traditional pulp industry must be updated in an efficient manner because of its high consumption of reagents, energy, and raw materials. Steam Explosion (SE) is one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly processes for the pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass. It combines prehydrolysis and mechanical pretreatment to make the biomass amenable to various further treatments such as pulping and enzymatic treatment. On the other hand, organosolv pulping, which is a delignification process of lignocellulosic biomass using organic solvents like ethanol and acetic acid, is being widely studied all over the world to reduce the pollution of the pulp industry and use all the components of biomass effectively. The aim of this work is to evaluate the effectiveness of the combination of steam explosion and ethanol pulping (EP) for the production of chemical pulp. The study determined the pulping yields, kappa number, and the viscosity of the resulting pulp in the ethanol pulping process of steam-exploded and prehydrolyzed reed chips. The results show that the ethanol pulping of steam-exploded reed is more effective than the conventional prehydrolysis-kraft pulping (PH-KP).