(451a) Low Temperature Hydrothermal Liquefaction of a Mixture of Lignin and Hemicellulose Derived Product Mixture

About 60% of Maine's pulp and paper mills closed between 2000 and 2017. Thousands of workers were laid off during this period. Forest owners have also been impacted by decreased demand wood. These problems can be overcome by creating additional revenue streams for pulp and papermills by upgrading currently underutilized lignin and hemicelluloses. In this study, we perform low temperature (250 °C) hydrothermal liquefaction of a mixture of lignin and hemicellulose-derived xylose to transportation fuel intermediates. We further convert hemicellulose to fatty acids using microbial strains and study the hydrothermal liquefaction of a mixture of lignin and hemicellulose derived fatty acids. The effectiveness of three different base catalysts (sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, and potassium carbonate) will be shown for the low temperature hydrothermal liquefaction of lignin/hemicellulose mixture and lignin/fatty acids mixture. The resulting hydrothermal liquids are characterized using the gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) method. These GC-MS characterization results will be used to determine the need for upgrading hemicelluloses to fatty acids prior to the hydrothermal liquefaction, suitable base catalyst for the low temperature hydrothermal liquefaction, and screening further upgrading hydrothermal liquefaction liquids to transportation fuels.