Consecutive determination of softwood kraft lignin structure and molar mass from NMR measurements

The general molecular properties and in particular, the molar mass of lignin are of central importance for industrial applications, as these data govern important thermal and mechanical characteristics. The focus of the present paper is pulsed field gradient-nuclear magnetic resonance (PFG-NMR), which is suitable for determination of lignins' weight-average molar mass, based on diffusion constants. The method is calibrated by lignin fractions characterized by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). It could be demonstrated on a set of softwood kraft lignins that the PFG-NMR approach gives results in very good agreement with those obtained using conventional size exclusion chromatography (SEC).