The Formation of Plasma Acid at Atmospheric Pressure and its Application in Hydrolysis of Microcrystalline Cellulose

In this paper, plasma acid was obtained by treating distilled water with dielectric barrier discharge at atmospheric pressure in order to hydrolyze cellulose. The acidity of plasma acid was studied through a single factor experiment. A plasma acid with pH value of 1.42 was obtained and used to hydrolyze microcrystalline cellulose at 80°C for 60min. Under this condition, the integrated optical density (IOD) of the hydrolysis sample was 0.589. Based on standard glucose curve, the total reducing sugar (TRS) was calculated to be 53.75mg and the TRS yield was 53.75%. The filtrate was evaporated to get the solid hydrolysis sample to be analyzed by High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results showed that the sample mainly consisted of glucose, which proved that microcrystalline cellulose could be hydrolyzed by plasma acid. Therefore, it could be concluded that it was an environmentally friendly and economical method to hydrolyze the microcrystalline cellulose by plasma acid.