Title： Rapid and Low Temperature (≤ 80°C) Wood fractionation
Speaker：Dr. J.Y. Zhu
USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, WI, USA
Dept. of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Time： 9:00 AM, Sep.6,2017
Place：Room 306, State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering


Speaker： 
Dr. J.Y. Zhu is a scientific team leader at the US Forest Service, Forest Products

Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin. He holds an Adjunct Appointment at the Dept. of Biological

Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was the Inaugural Fulbright-Aalto

University Distinguished Chair in Energy and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources (2015-

2016 academic year), Helsinki, Finland. His research covers a broad area of wood and fiber

utilization from wood pulping, fiber physics, bioenergy and biofuels, to cellulose

nanomaterials that encompassed from laboratory studies to commercial scale demonstrations.

Dr. Zhu’s achievements were honored with AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers)

Andrew Chase Award in 2016, TAPPI (Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry)

International R&D Technical Award and William Aiken Prize in 2014, and US Forest Service

Deputy Chief for R&D Distinguished Science Award in 2013.  Dr. Zhu is a Fellow of TAPPI,

AIChE, and IAWS (International Academy of Wood Science).

Report Summaries：
Lignocellulose based nanomaterials such as cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) have attracted

great interest recently due to renewability, biodegradability, and other unique mechanical

and optical properties with a potential to produce a variety of products for a sustainable

future. Economic and environmentally sustainable production, however, is the key to achieve

these potentials.

I will present a rapid and low temperature wood fractionation process for producing high

value building blocks such as dissolving pulp fibers, sugar/biofuel, and lignin containing

cellulose nanomaterials, lignin nanoparticles from wood directly. Approximately 90% of wood

lignin can be dissolved at 80°C for 20 min. Equivalent delignification using alkaline wood

pulping can be achieved only at 170°C for 2 h. This novel wood process fractionated wood

into two fractions: (1) a primarily carbohydrate-rich water-insoluble solid fraction that

can be used for sustainable production of high-value building blocks, such as dissolving

pulp fibers and lignocellulosic nanomaterials, and/or sugars through subsequent enzymatic

hydrolysis, and (2) a spent acid liquor stream containing mainly dissolved lignin that can

be easily precipitated as lignin nanoparticles simply by diluting the spent acid liquor to

below the minimal hydrotrope concentration.