Investigating the room- and cryo-milling impact in lignocellulosic biomass and its consequence over pyrolysis and oxidative treatments

• Published in: Journal of cleaner production Vol. 437; p. 140761
• Main Authors: Real Pérez, Concepción, Alcalá González, María Dolores, Romero Sarria, Francisca, Hidalgo López, María del Carmen, Córdoba Gallego, José Manuel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 15.01.2024
• Subjects: Biomass; Green chemistry; IR spectra; Liquid nitrogen; Milling; Recalcitrance; Green chemistry; IR spectra; Biomass; Recalcitrance; Milling; Liquid nitrogen
• ISSN: 0959-6526; 1879-1786
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.140761

The lignocellulosic biomass recalcitrance is the uppermost factor for the utilization of this renewable resource. The development of new pre-treatments, addressed to enhance performance in lignocellulosic biomass conversion into biofuels, fine chemicals, and as potential sources of building blocks for materials, must be focus in two main areas: effectiveness (cost-effective and chemical effective) and green chemistry. In this research, a set of different biomass sources (farmer, harvested wild trees and secondary products) were studied to evaluate the high efficiency of the non-liquid nitrogen (LN) and LN-treated biomass samples’ planetary ball milling performance. The samples have been characterized by particle size distribution, thermogravimetric, FT-IR, statistical chemometric and chemical oxidation analysis. The results have shown a high level on the rupture of the crystallinity and depolymerization degrees of the cellulose and the lignin, for both, non-LN and LN-treated samples. The thermogravimetric analysis showed a clear diminishing in temperature degradation, and a larger amount of biomass degraded at lower temperature, as well as, a high chemical oxidation degree than not milled samples. Finally, the LN-treated samples even exhibited a lower degradation temperature, a larger amount of biomass degraded at lower temperature and a higher oxidation degree, than those non-LN milled. [Display omitted] •Grinding pre-treatment was designed as a green chemistry process.•Grinding showed a highly efficiency to diminish biomass recalcitrance.•Lignocellulosic pyrolysis temperature was reduced over 120 °C.•Liquid nitrogen pre-treatment increased the post-treatments effectiveness.