Purification and concentration of paulownia hot water wood extracts with nanofiltration

• Published in: Separation and purification technology Vol. 156; pp. 848 - 855
• Main Authors: Xie, Yipeng, Liu, Shijie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 17.12.2015
• Subjects: Balancing; Fermentation; Hot water; Mass balance; Methyl alcohol; Nanofiltration; NMR; Paulownia wood extracts; Purification; Sugars; Wood; Mass balance; Nanofiltration; NMR; Paulownia wood extracts
• ISSN: 1383-5866; 1873-3794
• DOI: 10.1016/j.seppur.2015.11.012

•Nanofiltration is effective to process paulownia hot water extracts.•Most of fermentation inhibitors are removed to permeate streams.•Most of monosaccharides are retained in retentate streams.•Retention of each species is subject to multiple effects.•Both DK and AG membranes used are not effective to separate pentoses from hexoses. To remove fermentation-inhibiting compounds and increase sugar concentrations of paulownia wood extracts, the extracts were passed through a set of nanofiltration membrane. During the process, the changes of the concentrations in both retentate and permeate flows were determined. For individual components, a simplistic model based on mass balance was established for the process. The results show that most of the fermentation inhibitants, such as furfural, hydroxymethylfufural, free acetic acid, formic acid and methanol are removed while most of the desirable components, i.e. sugars, are preserved. Nanofiltration is found to be an efficient way to purify and concentrate wood extracts.