Rapid Small-Scale Determination of Extractives in Biomass

The results of a small-scale method for the extraction of a range of feedstock samples, comprising herbaceous, hard, and soft wood, were compared to the conventional method using accelerated solvent extraction (ASE). In general, the extractives were in the range of 97.3 to 104.4 % of the values obtained by the conventional method, and the manual method was highly reproducible (0.1-1.6 % relative standard deviation, n = 5). The analysis of the water phases from sugarcane revealed that the two methods resulted in almost identical soluble sugar composition. The composition of the resulting biomass was 98.8-103.7 % (average 100.9 %) Klason lignin, 96.2-99.5 % (average 98.2 %) glucan, and 97.5-101.1 % (average 98.0 %) xylan of the results obtained from an analysis starting with ASE. The newly developed has been shown to be a fast and inexpensive alternative to the conventional ASE and an ideal tool when only small amount of sample is available.