Optimization of water-only reductive catalytic fractionation of biomass | Poster Board #727

Reductive catalytic fractionation (RCF) of biomass is a promising method to fractionate lignin and polysaccharides. RCF traditionally uses organic solvents, but as an alternative, the use of water as the sole RCF solvent could potentially enable more efficient downstream processing, both for lignin oil separations and solvent recovery and recycling. In this work, we present the optimization of water-only RCF of biomass considering important process conditions including time, temperature, pressure, catalyst, and biomass feedstock. Our results demonstrate a significant reduction in RCF time, temperature, and pressure relative to conventional RCF processes, along with more facile separation of lignin-derived products downstream. The evolution of this process towards milder conditions and simpler downstream processing is promising for the eventual scale-up of RCF.