Extraction of lignin from different sources of biomass using organosolv pretreatment and determination of its physical and chemical behaviour

Lignocellulosic biomass is the natural resources that are produced as the by-product from agricultural activities. It is composed of three main components which are cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Lignin is the second most abundant organic polymer after cellulose and its roles is providing mechanical strength and resistance toward disease, temperature changes and other stress. Lignin can be extracted from the biomass sources by few methods including enzymatic hydrolysis„acid hydrolysis and organosolv pretreatment. Organosolv treatment is more advantages compared to other methods because it can produce lignin with high level of purity and the extracted lignin will has low level of impurities such as ashes, carbohydrates and other compounds. The objectives of this study are to extract and compared the yield of the extracted lignin from different biomass sources (woodchip, sugarcane bagasse and rice straw) with different type of organic solvents. Woodchip has the highest content of lignin followed by sugarcane bagasse and lastly rice straw with the lowest content of lignin. As for the effect of the organic solvent in the yield of lignin, it showed that extraction using ethanol has the highest yield of lignin compared to acetone and propanol. The physical and chemical properties of the extracted lignin were determined by FTIR analysis and TGA analysis.