Continuous-Flow Microreactor Accelerates Molecular Collisions for Lignin Depolymerization to Phenolic Monomers and Oligomers

Effective depolymerization of lignin is the most important step for its comprehensive utilization. So far, most of the studies on depolymerization of lignin focused on batch processing, whereas only a few studies relied on the microreactor. In this study, we developed a continuous-flow microreactor for depolymerization of lignin into monomeric and oligomeric compounds. The yields of monomers and oligomers can be adjusted by varying the temperature, pressure, residence time, NaOH dosage, and solvent. Under optimized conditions, the lignin conversion rate was 77.73 wt %, and the monomer yield was 13.26 wt %, with 77.81% being phenolic compounds. In addition, comparative characterizations on the raw lignin and products demonstrated that the oil products were mainly composed of phenolic tetramers and trimers, and the effective cleavage of the β-O-4 linkage of S-type lignin was responsible for the high yield of 2,6-dimethoxyphenol. It indicated that raw lignin could be effectively depolymerized continuously using the continuous-flow microreactor, and it will be a new strategy for comprehensive utilization of lignin to produce fine-chemical intermediates.