Bleaching ability of pre-hydrolyzed pulps in the context of a biorefinery mill

Autohydrolysis and acid hydrolysis treatments were applied on mixed softwood chips. The cooking ability was studied by varying the alkali and duration of the cook. Pulps with kappa numbers varying from 30 to 70 were obtained. The bleaching ability of these pulps was studied and compared to control kraft pulps. The prehydrolyzed pulps were shown to be more efficiently delignified by oxygen than the control kraft pulps starting from the same kappa number. Furthermore, the final bleaching was also easier for these pulps. It was also shown that extensive oxygen delignification applied on high-kappa pre-hydrolyzed pulps could be a way to improve the overall yield, which is a prerequisite for the development of such biorefinery concepts. Lignin was isolated from the control kraft and the two pre-hydrolyzed kraft pulps and analyzed by 13C NMR. Lignins from pre-hydrolyzed kraft pulps had similar free phenolic groups content to the control kraft lignin, but their aliphatic hydroxyl groups and β-O-4 content were lower than for the control lignin. The quaternary carbon content was the same for all the samples.