Production of Water-Soluble Hardwood Kraft Lignin via Sulfomethylation Using Formaldehyde and Sodium Sulfite

Kraft lignin can be extracted from black liquor (i.e., spent liquor) of a kraft pulping process to produce value-added chemicals, but its limited water solubility hampers its end-use applications. The main objective of this study was to investigate the sulfomethylation of kraft lignin to produce water-soluble kraft lignin with an anionic charge density. In this work, hardwood kraft lignin was modified with formaldehyde and sodium sulfite under alkali conditions. The optimum conditions for sulfomethylation were 0.5 M NaOH (aq), 0.9 mol/mol sodium hydroxymethyl sulfonate/lignin at 100 °C for 3 h, and 20 g/L lignin concentration. The resulting lignin had a charge density of −1.60 mequiv/g and sulfonate group content of 1.48 mmol/g. The molecular weight, structure, thermal behavior, and elemental analyses of the product were also assessed. The modified lignin was used as a cement dispersant, and the dispersibility of cement was increased from 60 to 155 mm by adding 1.2 wt % of sulfomethylated lignin to cement. Unmodified lignin did not change the dispersibility of cement.