Cellulose-containing compositions and methods of making same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11440974-B2
Application number	US-201916541019-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 14, 2019
Priority date	Sep 26, 2014
Publication date	Sep 13, 2022
Grant date	Sep 13, 2022

Abstract

Cellulose-containing compositions and method of making same are disclosed. The compositions comprise a cellulose product comprising a type-I cellulose, a type-II cellulose, amorphous cellulose, or a combination thereof. Further, methods are disclosed for making these compositions and for further hydrolyzing these compositions. Additionally, uses for the cellulose-containing compositions are disclosed.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A method comprising:
providing a reactant comprising a material selected from the group consisting of lignocellulosic biomass, cellulosic biomass, processed cellulosic biomass, starch-containing feedstock, municipal waste, and combinations thereof;
contacting the reactant with a fluid consisting of water, wherein the water is sub-critical, near-critical, or supercritical water, to form a first reactant mixture, wherein the first reactant mixture is at a temperature of about 250° C. to about 450° C. and at a pressure of about 110 bar to about 350 bar for a time period of about 0.1 sec to about 10 sec, quenching the first reactant mixture to form a first product mixture comprising:
i) a first liquid fraction; and
ii) a first solid fraction; wherein the first solid fraction comprises a composition comprising a cellulose product; and processing the first product mixture;

wherein the processing is at least one of
a) recovering at least a portion of the cellulose product from the first product mixture to form a recovered cellulose product, wherein a yield of the recovered cellulose product is from about 5% to about 100%, based on the amount of cellulose in the reactant; and
b) hydrolyzing at least a portion of the first product mixture, and wherein
the cellulose product comprises a type-I cellulose and type-II cellulose.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the quenching comprises flash cooling.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the quenching comprises cooling to a temperature of about 30° C. to about 300° C.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the quenching comprises changing the first reactant mixture to a pressure of about 1 to about 90 bar.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cellulose product comprises lignin.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cellulose product comprises at least one cello-saccharide selected from the group consisting of cellohexaose, cellopentaose, cellotetraose, cellotriose, cellobiose, glucose and combinations thereof.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first liquid fraction comprises a soluble glucose monomer, a soluble glucose oligomer, a soluble xylose monomer, a soluble xylose oligomer, or any combination thereof.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising separating the cellulose product from the first liquid fraction, the first solid fraction, or a combination thereof to form a separated composition.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the separating is performed using gravity separation, centrifugal separation, centripetal separation, filtration, or a combination thereof.

10. The method of claim 5 , further comprising: separating the lignin from the cellulose product at a temperature, a pressure, and for a period of time sufficient to form a purified lignin.

Assignees

• Renmatix Inc

Inventors

• Capanema Ewellyn A
• Balakshin Mikhail Y
• Fitzgibbon Patrick David
• Kosa Matyas
• Mclarty Todd Michael
• Sanderson Charles Sebastian

Classifications

• C09J201/00

  Adhesives based on unspecified macromolecular compounds · CPC title

• C08L97/005

  Lignin · CPC title

• C08L1/02

  Cellulose; Modified cellulose · CPC title

• C08H6/00

  Macromolecular compounds derived from lignin, e.g. tannins, humic acids · CPC title

• C08B37/0057

  beta-D-Xylans, i.e. xylosaccharide, e.g. arabinoxylan, arabinofuronan, pentosans; (beta-1,3)(beta-1,4)-D-Xylans, e.g. rhodymenans; Hemicellulose; Derivatives thereof · CPC title