New Pretreatment Methods Combining a Hot Water Treatment and Water/Acetone Extraction for Thermo-Chemical Conversion of Biomass

New pretreatment methods were developed for separating hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin from biomass for their efficient use in the thermo-chemical conversion of each component. One method is basically a two-step process. Biomass treated in hot water at 180 °C was extracted in a flowing stream of water/acetone mixture under 10 MPa at 230 °C. Through the hot water treatment, hemicellulose in biomass was successfully recovered as saccharides, leaving lignin and cellulose as a solid. Through the sequential extraction by the water/acetone solvent, lignin was depolymerized into the water/acetone-soluble compounds and the residual cellulose was partly dehydrated. The other method is a one-step process, in which biomass was directly extracted in 50% water/acetone solution at 200 °C using a batch reactor, and the residue was pure cellulose. The proposed methods were expected to be new routes for converting low-grade resources into valuable chemicals.