A separation and quantification method of levoglucosan in biomass pyrolysis

A rapid method for the quantification of levoglucosan in pyrolysis liquids using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed. The method avoids the tedious and time-consuming sample preparation required by current analytical methods In this method, levoglucosan has better separation of xylose, glucose and fructose so as to avoid interference. The calibration curve coefficient of determination on levoglucosan was >0.990 determined by an evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD). The relative standards for the new method were ≤1.34% at low concentration and ≤2.56% at high concentration. The spiked levoglucosan recovery on the pyrolysis liquid samples were between 96.79 and 99.13%. The research demonstrates that it is possible to obtain excellent accuracy and efficiency using HPLC to quantificate levoglucosan found in fast pyrolysis bio-oils.