Conversion of technical lignins to functional materials with retained polymeric properties

Abstract

A significant amount of technical lignins is produced in the pulp and paper industries. However, most technical lignins are burned for thermal recycling and a few percent are used as materials, such as lignosulfonate as a dispersant. Native lignin has a highly complex structure and is susceptible to structural variations depending on the pulping process, thus hindering the effective utilization of lignins. The procedures used to convert lignins into functional materials include depolymerization to monomeric fragments followed by re-building to functional materials, and chemical modifications to generate functional polymers with retained polymeric properties. In this paper, the latter is disserted. The characteristics of technical lignins, which include kraft lignin, lignosulfonate, and organosolv lignin, and their conversion to functional materials such as polyesters, polyethers, polyurethanes, etc. and the applications of lignin-based materials in some fields are discussed.