Adequately converting poplar sawdust's carbohydrates to furfural and glucose by employing acid oxidation pretreatment and solid acid catalysis

The utilization of lignocellulosic biorefinery residue has always been a major obstacle hindering its industrialization. In this work, the acetic acid assisted hydrogen peroxide pretreatment (AHP) and enzymatic hydrolysis was employed to facilitate the efficient bioconversion of poplar sawdust (PS), while simultaneously utilizing the solid acid catalyst (SA) synthesized from enzymatically hydrolyzed PS (EPS) for furfural production from prehydrolysate. It demonstrated that enzymatic hydrolysis of PS achieved a glucose yield of 61.3 %, which can be attributed to the effective removal of xylan and lignin through AHP pretreatment. The structural characterization revealed that SA-EPS exhibited a higher pore density, more acidic sites, and an increased presence of acidic groups compared with SA prepared from PS. Ultimately, the utilization of SA-EPS significantly augmented furfural yield and selectivity to 54.3 % and 64.1 %, respectively. By successfully synthesizing SA using lignin-rich EPS, the value-added benefits and increased efficiency have been achieved in biorefinery processes.