• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.1361-1370
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• 2015

A blue laccase was purified from a white rot fungus of Trametes trogii, which was a monomeric protein of 64 kDa as determined by SDS-PAGE. The enzyme acted optimally at a pH of 2.2 to 4.5 and a temperature of 70℃ and showed high thermal stability, with a half-life of 1.6 h at 60℃. A broad range of substrates, including the non-phenolic azo dye methyl red, was oxidized by the laccase, and the laccase exhibited high affinity towards ABTS and syringaldazine. Moreover, the laccase was fairly metal-tolerant. A high-molecular-weight kraft lignin was effectively polymerized by the laccase, with a maximum of 6.4-fold increase in weight-average molecular weight, as demonstrated by gel permeation chromatography. Notable structural changes in the polymerized lignin were detected by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and ¹H NMR spectroscopy. This revealed an increase in condensed structures as well as carbonyl and aliphatic hydroxyl groups. Simultaneously, phenolic hydroxyl and methoxy groups decreased. These results suggested the potential use of the laccase in lignin modification.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.7-11
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• 2007

Kraft pulping of Trema orientalis (Nalita) was studied in order to find kinetic data for delignification. Pulping runs were carried out in the temperature range of $160-180\;^{\circ}C$ under constant and well-defined conditions. The delignification was found to be first order with respect to residual lignin and was chemically controlled. The rate of delignification reaction was increased 1.11-1.23 for $10\;^{\circ}C$ temperature increase in the range of $160-180\;^{\circ}C$ range. A mean value of 93% of lignin was removed at the transition between bulk and residual delignification. The influence of cooking temperature on the rate constant was expressed by an Arrhenius-type equation. The obtained activation energy of the delignification reaction was 6,164 cal/mol. The transition point between bulk and residual phase was shifted to lower lignin and carbohydrate yield with the increase of temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2006.06b
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• pp.291-294
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• 2006

Studies of the effectiveness of anthraquinone (AQ) in kraft-AQ pulping in terms of its mechanism of mass transfer have been conducted. Experiments performed have demonstrated an 'apparent solubility' of AQ in caustic solutions of wood lignin. The adsorption behavior of AQ species was also analyzed. Anthraquinone-2-sulfonic acid (AQ-S), a water-soluble derivative of AQ, showed selective adsorption on wood. A mechanism for the transport of AQ into wood chips during kraft pulping are proposed, and some explanations for previously unexplained observations are addressed.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.1765-1773
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• 2016

Wastewater containing kraft lignin (KL) discharged from pulp and paper industries could cause serious environmental contamination. Appropriate effluent treatment is required to reduce the pollution. Investigations on anaerobic bacteria capable of degrading KL are beneficial to both lignin removal and biofuel regeneration from the effluent. In this paper, an anaerobic strain capable of degrading KL was isolated from the sludge of a pulp and paper mill and identified as Dysgonomonas sp. WJDL-Y1 by 16S rRNA analysis. Optimum conditions for KL degradation by strain WJDL-Y1 were obtained at initial pH of 6.8, C:N ratio of 6 and temperature of 33℃, based on statistical analyses by response surface methodology. For a 1.2 g/l KL solution, a COD removal rate of 20.7% concomitant with biomass increase of 17.6% was achieved after 4 days of incubation under the optimum conditions. After the treatment by strain WJDL-Y1, KL was modified and degraded.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 1997

Kraft oak lignin and ricestraw lignin from acetosolve pulping were dissolved in 50/50 mixture of tetralin/m-cresol solvent. The dissolved lignin was reacted in the pressurized autoclave which was operating at $350{\sim}500^{\circ}C$ of reaction temperature and 10~20 atms of reaction pressure respectively_Hydrogen pressure of 60~80kg/$cm^2$ was exercising into the pressurized autoclave reactor to create thermochemical hydrogenolysis reaction. It was identified by GLC, GC-MS and HPLC that the alkyl-aryl-${\beta}$-O-4 ether bond of lignin was cleaved and degraded into various smaller molecules of aromatic compound such as phenols and cresols under the reaction conditions around $300^{\circ}C$ and 10 atms of reaction temoerature and pressure. Hydrogenolysis reaction of lignin compound which was done above $500^{\circ}C$ of reaction temperature and 20 atms of reaction pressure showed that the amount of aromatic compound such as phenols and cresols degraded from reactant lignin was decreasing with newly present and increasing water out of product mixtures. It was supposed that new aliphatic compound of high molecular weight hydrocarbon is composed due to higher reaction temperature and pressure of hydrogenolysis reaction such as $500^{\circ}C$ and 20 atms, even though it was almost impossible, to identify what kind of degraded products it was by HPLC.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2011

Plant biomass has been proposed as an alternative source of petroleum-based chemical compounds. Especially, aromatic chemical compounds can be obtained from lignin by depolymerization processes because the lignin consist of complex aromatic materials. In this study, kraft lignin, the largest emitted substance among several kinds of lignin in Korea, was used as a starting material and was characterized by solid-state $^{13}C$-Muclear Magnetic Resonance($^{13}C$-NMR), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy(FT-IR), Elemental Analysis(EA). The depolymerization of kraft lignin was studied at water-phenol mixture solvent in near critical region and the experiments were conducted using a batch type reactor. The effects of water-to-phenol ratio and reaction temperature($300-400^{\circ}C$) were investigated to determine the optimum operating conditions. Additionally, the effects of formic acid as a hydrogen-donor solvent instead of $H_2$ gas were examined. The chemical species and quantities in the liquid products were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy(GC-MS), and solid residues(char) were analyzed using FT-IR. GC-MS analysis confirmed that the aromatic chemicals such as anisole, o-cresol(2-methylphenol), p-cresol(4-methylphenol), 2-ethylphenol, 4-ethylphenol, dibenzofuran, 3-methyl cabazole and xanthene were produced when phenol was added in the water as a co-solvent.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.31-39
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• 2003

The enzymatic isolation of residual lignins obtained from spruce and beech pulps (obtained by sulfite, kraft, ASAM and soda/AQ/MeOH pulping processes) and their characterization was described in previous publications. Here, the residual lignins have been submitted to potassium permanganate oxidation (KMnO₄ degradation), and 9 aromatic carboxylic acids (3 of them are dimeric) were identified after methylation with diazomethane by GC/MS. The analytical challenge during qantification by the internal standard methods was the partly high protein content of the samples, which resulted in elevated anisic acid yields in the degradation mixture of sulfite residual lignins. The results are compared with the KMnO₄ degradation of the corresponding MWLs and discussed in terms of S/G ratios and degrees of condensation. The latter was calculated as a quotient between the aromatic carboxylic acids derived from condensed and non-condensed lignin structures. Typical degradation patterns for the various processes have been observed. Among other parameter, the relative compositions between iso-hemipinic acid (which is for condensation in pos. 5 of the aromatic ring) and meta-hemipinic acid and 3,4,5-trimethoxyphthalic acid (both are for condensation in pos. 6 of the aromatic ring) was found to be process specific. Kraft and soda/AQ/MeOH residual lignins yielded higher amounts of iso-hemipinic acid. In contrast, the relative yields of meta-hemipinic acid and 3,4,5-trimethoxyphthalic acid (the latter in beech lignins) are higher in sulfite and particularly in ASAM residual lignin. In case of beech residual lignins the amount of acids originated from non-condensed syringyl type lignin units was surprisingly high. The condensation degree of residual lignins was shown to be generally higher than that of MWLs. This was especially true for the G units. ASAM residual lignin exhibited very high S/G ratios and degrees of polymerization. Causality between condensation degree and total yield of degradation products was demonstrated.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.38-48
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• 2023

Two important steps in utilizing technical kraft lignin (KL) from black liquor to synthesize lignin-phenol-formaldehyde (LPF) resin are its extraction via precipitation and fractionation. However, the effects of precipitation pH and acetone fractionation on the characteristics of hardwood KL have not been studied for LPF resins. Therefore, this paper reports the effects of the precipitation pH of black liquor and acetone fractionation on the characteristics of KL from mixed hardwood species for LPF resins. The precipitation was conducted at various pH levels from 3 to 9 of black liquor to obtain crude KL (C-KL), which was used in acetone fractionation to produce acetone-soluble KL (AS-KL) and acetone-insoluble KL (AI-KL). Precipitation at pH 3 and 9 produced the highest and lowest yields of C-KL, respectively. As expected, the C-KL infrared spectra were similar regardless of the precipitation pH levels. As the pH increased, the molecular weight of C-KL increased. However, the molecular weight of AS-KL and AI-KL after acetone fractionation increased to a maximum of 4,170 and 47,190 g/mol at pH 7, then decreased to 3,210 and 19,970 g/mol at pH 9, respectively. The smallest molecular weights of AS-KL and AI-KL were 3,210 and 15,480 g/mol and were found at pH 9 and 3, respectively. These results suggest that both AS-KL at pH 9 and AI-KL at pH 3 have good potential as starting lignins for synthesizing LPF resins that require cross-linking for polymerization.

• Journal of Korea Foresty Energy
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 1999

This study was conducted to examine the change in the structure of the lignin during liquefaction of kraft pulp lignin in Pinus korainsis and lignin sulfonic acid. The lignin liquefied compounds were extracted with chloroform from aqueous, liquefied lignins. Through the examination by IR, H($^{13}$C) - NMR and GC-MS spectrometers, phenolic compounds such as diguaiacol, acetic acid phenyl ester, phenol, 1-phenyl ethanone were identified with many of unknown phenolic compounds.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2006.06b
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• pp.285-290
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• 2006

As an alternative method to solve air pollution problem and difficulty of pulp bleaching of kraft pulping process, NaOH-Urea pulping was applied. The properties of NaOH-Urea pulp were compared to those of NaOH and kraft pulps. Addition of urea in low alkali charges retarded delignification rate compared to NaOH pulping. But, in high alkali application, delignification was significantly enhanced not from the addition of urea but from the high alkalinity. It was disclosed that urea did not participate on delignification reaction by the experiment using lignin model compound. Compared to paper strengths at the same level of sheet density, NaOH-Urea pulp gave as almost same breaking length and tensile index as those of kraft pulp. Especially tensile energy absorption and burst index were higher than those of kraft pulp.