The Black Liquor, Have You Heard Of It?
Léa Vilcocq (from the CARE team) has recently published an article titled \”Catalytic Valorization of Black Liquor for the Chemical Industry\”. This article appears in the January issue of Actualité Chimique, the journal of the Société Chimique de France. Notably, Léa also won the 2024 Young Researcher Award from the Catalysis Division of the SCF.
But what is black liquor, and why should we care?
Black liquor is generated during the production of paper and cardboard. It is a liquid byproduct rich in lignin (a natural biopolymer derived from wood) and organic compounds. Once considered waste, it could become a renewable source of chemical compounds, aligning with a circular economy approach.
Research conducted at IRCELYON demonstrates that useful compounds can be extracted from it using catalysis. Scaling up to industrial levels and ensuring economic viability remain significant challenges, but the results are promising for a more sustainable and petroleum-independent chemistry.
Want to learn more?
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IRCELYON Bibliography
- A. Hernandez Mañas, Lignin depolymerisation in oxidising conditions: from batch to continuous reactor, Ph.D. thesis, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 2020.
- A. Hernández Mañas et al., Production of phenolic compounds from catalytic oxidation of Kraft black liquor in a continuous reactor, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 2022, 61, p. 7430-7, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.2c00486
- A. Hernández Mañas, L. Vilcocq, P. Fongarland, L. Djakovitch, Lignin catalytic oxidation by CuO/TiO2: role of catalyst in phenolics formation, Waste Biomass Valorization, 2023, 14, p. 3789-809, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-023-02082-y
- L. Vilcocq et al., Potential of catalytic oxidation of Kraft black liquor for the production of bio-based compounds, Green Chem., 2023, 25, p. 4793-807, https://doi.org/10.1039/D3GC00388D
- A. Hernandez Mañas, L. Vilcocq, P. Fongarland, L. Djakovitch, Catalytic oxidation of Kraft lignin in a trickle-bed continuous reactor, ChemPlusChem, 2024, 90, art. e202400730, https://doi.org/10.1002/cplu.202400730
