Quantitative comparison of surface properties of enzymatic hydrolysis lignin before and after degradation

The high value utilization of lignin is attracting increased attention because of environmental problems and resource depletion. Although these are numerous reports describing the modification and degradation of enzymatic hydrolysis lignin (EHL), quantitative characterization is lacking. In this work, EHL was efficiently degraded using H3PW12O40/ZrO2 (HPW/ZrO2) as catalyst. Following degradation, the total hydroxyl group content and phenolic hydroxyl group content, measured by acid-base titration and ultraviolet spectrophotometry, were increased by 259% and 152%, respectively. Hansen solubility parameters were calculated using the specific retention time of probe solvents, measured by inverse gas chromatography (IGC), quantitatively characterizing changes in surface properties.