Effect of steam explosion treatment on chemical composition and characteristic of organosolv fescue lignin

Tall fescue, a grass currently grown as forage, presents a good potential as a feedstock in the development of biorefining. In this study, combination of steam explosion and an acetic/formic acid “organosolv” pretreatments are applied on raw fescue to optimize lignin extraction yields and obtain specific products. In a first step, fescue is pretreated by steam explosion under severity factors from 1.4 to 4.2. These treatments allow hemicelluloses solubilization and open the lignocellulosic structure. Steam exploded solid residues are then treated with an acetic acid (50%)/formic acid (30%)/water (20%) mixture. Extracted lignins are precipitated and characterized by size exclusion chromatography (SEC), 31P NMR and HSQC NMR. Results show that acetic and formic acids extracted lignins present G, H and S units with ferulate and p-coumarate. Lignin typical linkages identified are of β-O-4 and spirodienone substructures. Combination of steam explosion and acetic and formic acid pretreatments increases extraction yields from 30% to 100%. Moreover, an increase of the steam explosion treatment intensity induces chemical modifications in lignin structure such β-O-4 and spirodienone substructure degradations, increase of free COOH and phenolic OH bonds, decrease of aliphatic OH ferulate and p-coumarate bonds and changes in G/H/S units proportions. Steam explosion intensity affects also lignin molecular weights.