Extraction of polymeric rapeseed straw hemicelluloses for renewable films

Sammanfattning: Polymeric hemicelluloses with high molecular weight were extracted from rapeseed straw with a straight forward hydrothermal extraction method, evaluated and refined by statistical factorial screening design and ‘severity factor’ analysis. The influence of the extraction conditions, time, temperature and pH of the extraction liquid, on the composition, molecular weight, yield and properties was unveiled. The initial statistical screening design provided critical knowledge in how the extraction parameters affect yield, lignin and sugar composition as well as molecular weight of the extracts. A more elaborate extraction study which encompassed a greater temperature range and variation of the pH in the hydrothermal liquid combined with ‘severity factor’ modeling on the molecular weight of the extracts provided deeper insights of the effect of the extraction conditions. Water and acid extraction resulted in glucomannan rich extracts. Glucomannan isolated with acid was more degraded than the glucomannan isolated with water. From an environmentally perspective water extraction is preferred to obtain glucomannan due to the corrosive nature of acid. The molecular weight of the dissolved glucomannan during water extraction increased with temperature. Xylan was co-extracted at the higher extraction temperature. Alkaline extraction yielded an extract rich in xylan, where the total amount and the molecular weight of xylan increased with alkali charge. The xylan was more degraded at the highest temperature, 140 °C, and the highest alkali charge. All different extractions yielded co-extracted lignin, especially during high charge of alkali, but the straw was never fully delignified or the cellulose fibres liberated. Some extracts, selected from the statistical screening study, were utilized as raw materials for renewable plastic films.  The glucomannan films were very fragile, while the xylan films had remarkable strain-at-break of 60 – 80 % without any added plasticizer.