GC-MS Analysis of Catalytic Degradation Products of Lignin Model Compounds in Biomass Research

When converting biomass resources into energy or raw chemical materials, it is essential to improve the conversion yield and analyze the reaction process. This sort of analysis requires identifying volatile components; therefore, GCMS systems, with their excellent qualitative capabilities, are useful.
This report presents an example of degrading a lignin model compound with a solid acid catalyst in an aqueous solution and directly analyzing the resulting solution using GC-MS without pretreatment.
Lignin accounts for 20 % to 30 % of woody biomass. However, it is only weakly reactive because of its strong macromolecular structure, and therefore difficult to degrade. Since anisole, phenol, guaiacol, and other lignin degradation products are useful materials, though, research is progressing into degradation methods that provide a high conversion yield. The analysis of the catalytic degradation reaction presented in this report revealed that guaiacol is mainly produced from lignin model compounds.
In addition, utilizing the GCMS-QP2010 Ultra, which features a differential vacuum system, enabled the acquisition of favorable results even when directly injecting the sample aqueous solution into the GC-MS.