Preparation of anion-exchange resins from pine sulfuric acid lignin, one of the acid hydrolysis lignins

To utilize acid hydrolysis lignin effectively, chemical conversion to anion-exchange resin was investigated by two methods. Sulfuric acid lignin (SAL) was selected as a typical acid hydrolysis lignin in this experiment. Because it is less reactive, SAL was phenolated with sulfuric acid catalyst to yield reactive phenolized SAL (P-SAL) with p-hydroxyphenyl nuclei. One method was the restricted resinification of P-SAL followed by the Mannich reaction with formaldehyde and dimethylamine to yield a weakly basic anion-exchange resin with an ion-exchange capacity of 2.4 mEq/g. Another method was to react resinified P-SAL with glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride to yield a strongly basic anion-exchange resin with an ion-exchange capacity of 2.0 mEq/g. The reaction of a simple P-SAL model compound with an epoxide suggested that the phenolic hydroxyl group of the p-hydroxyphenyl nucleus had slightly higher reactivity than that of the guaiacyl nucleus.