Utilisation de l'hydrosulfite de sodium pour la conversion de la lignine issue de bioraffineries

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Since COP21, many industrialized countries have made strong commitments toward reducing their GHG emissions including Canada. Many option are available to this purpose including improving the efficiency of buildings as well as completely discarding coal as an energy source. However, transportation fuels are still one of the major producers of GHG in the country and to solve this situation, lesser options are actually available on the market. Of course, the increasing availability of electric cars is a net plus value for the reduction of GHG in transportation. However, in a country as large as Canada and with the actual limitation related to battery autonomy combined to the fact that electricity does not yet (nor for the next 10 years) apply to heavy transportation and aviation, there is still an important necessity for advanced renewable transportation fuels. At this point, the utilization of second generation biomass is constraint by two significant technological and economical challenges. One is the hydrolysis of cellulose, which is still economically challenging either when using enzymatic or chemical approaches for saccharification. In addition to cellulose, the second biggest challenge with the second-generation biofuel business is the conversion of lignin to added value products which was a problem 20 years ago and is still a major challenge today. Lignin is a refractory aromatic-based macromolecule which can be found in lignocellulosic biomass at concentrations varying from 15-35% with a high potential for the production of chemical feedstock. In this work, the utilization of sodium hydrosulfite, a compound known for its utilization in pulp and paper bleaching processes, will be used in order to produce valuable chemical products. Increasing the amount of monomers produced from such process, especially if it uses less severe conditions, will be beneficial for biorefineries which currently under estimates lignin as a low quality fuel.