Comparative Experimental Study on Hydrolysis of Cellulose by Plasma Acid

The key technological step in realizing the energy utilization of cellulose lies in the hydrolysis of cellulose into glucose. To achieve clean and efficient energy utilization of cellulose, this study innovatively proposes a technical approach of plasma acid synchronous catalytic hydrolysis of cellulose, which breaks through the limitations of conventional stepwise acid-production hydrolysis and enables the simultaneous generation of acid and hydrolysis of cellulose within the same reaction system. The effects of operating voltage, discharge gap, and reaction time on hydrolysis efficiency were systematically investigated, and a comparative study was conducted on the hydrolysis performance between the synchronous method and the two-step method. The results indicate that within the same reaction duration, the synchronous method demonstrates a significantly higher cellulose conversion rate. Specifically, at a reaction time of 60 min, the average conversion rate of the synchronous method is approximately 32.8% higher than that of the two-step method, while the average specific energy consumption is only 16.7% of the latter. Mechanism analysis reveals that the high-energy electrons and H+ generated by plasma discharge effectively facilitate efficient energy transfer to cellulose molecules, significantly reducing the activation energy of the hydrolysis reaction. This process accelerates the efficient release of glucose units, thereby enabling faster hydrolysis at lower energy consumption.