Recovering/concentrating of hemicellulosic sugars and acetic acid by nanofiltration and reverse osmosis from prehydrolysis liquor of kraft based hardwood dissolving pulp process

•A concept was proposed to recover sugar and acetic acid from the PHL.•Activated carbon adsorption was applied to remove lignin.•NF and reverse RO were followed to recover and concentrate sugars and acetic acid.•Pressure and pH effect were also observed to optimize the process.

This work investigated the feasibility of recovering and concentrating sugars and acetic acid (HAc) from prehydrolysis liquor (PHL) of the kraft-based dissolving pulp process prior to fermentation of hemicellulosic sugars, by the combination of activated carbon adsorption, nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) processes. To reduce the fouling PHL was subjected to adsorption on activated carbon, then the treated PHL (TPHL) passed through a nanofiltration (NF DK) membrane to retain the sugars, and the permeate of acetic acid rich solution was passed through a reverse osmosis membrane (RO SG). It was found that for NF process sugars were concentrated from 48 to 227 g/L at a volume reduction factor (VRF) of 5 while 80 to 90% of acetic acid was permeated. For the reverse osmosis process, 68% of acetic acid retention was achieved at pH 4.3 and 500 psi pressure and the HAc concentration increased from 10 to 50 g/L.