Hydrolysis of Wheat Straw Using Sulphuric Acid

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Date
1984-11-27Author
Ranganathan, Srinivasan
Type
ThesisDegree Level
MastersMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The kinetics of cellulose and hemicellulose hydrolysis of
wheat straw was studied using both isothermal and non-isothermal
techniques in a batch Parr reactor. Reactions were carried out
between 100 and 2100C and product sugars were analyzed using a
Bio-Rad HPX-87P liquid chromatographic column. A simple first
order series reaction model was used for both cellulose and
hemicellulose hydrolysis reactions and kinetic parameters were
obtained for the Arrhenius rate equations for three different
sulphuric acid concentrations (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%). To minimize
the amount of experimental data required and to achieve a unique
solution to the kinetic parameters, the technique of combining
isothermal and non-isothermal reaction data was studied.
Activation energies remained constant with acid concentration but
the pre-exponential factors showed an increase with acid
concentration.