Characterisation of cellulose and hardwood organosolv lignin reference materials by XPS

Cellulose and lignin reference samples have been investigated to enable the easier identification of the composition of pine wood strands in XPS. Presented here are the survey and high resolution x-ray photoelectron spectra of cellulose and lignin. Cellulose is characterised by a lack of intensity of the aliphatic carbon peak in addition to an intense carbon-oxygen peak corresponding to alcohols groups. Lignin is characterised by the presence of an intense aliphatic peak and a π-π* shake-up.