title: Extraction of hemicelluloses from fiberized spruce wood.
abstract: A novel mechanical pre-treatment method was used to separate the wood chips into fiber bundles in order to extract high molecular weight wood polymers. The mechanical pre-treatment involved chip compression in a conical plug-screw followed by defibration in a fiberizer. The fiberized wood was treated with hot water at various combinations of time and temperature in order to analyze the extraction yield of hemicelluloses at different conditions. Nearly 6 mg/g wood of galactoglucomannan was obtained at 90 °C/120 min which was about three times more than what could be extracted from wood chips. The extracted carbohydrates had molecular weight ranging up to 60 kDa. About 10% of each of the extracted material had a molecular weight above 30 kDa. The extraction liquor could also be reused for consecutive extractions with successive increase in the extraction yield of hemicelluloses.
authors.affiliation: Wallenberg Wood Science Center, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Shoaib
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Azhar
authors.affiliation: Wallenberg Wood Science Center, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Fiber and Polymer Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Gunnar
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Henriksson
authors.affiliation: Wallenberg Wood Science Center, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Forest Products and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96, Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Theliander
authors.affiliation: Wallenberg Wood Science Center, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Fiber and Polymer Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: mil@kth.se.
authors.forename: Mikael E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Lindström
keywords: Fiberized wood; Galactoglucomannan; Hemicelluloses; Mechanical pre-treatment; Spruce (Picea abies)