Ekielski Adam, Mishra Pawan Kumar
Department of Production Engineering, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-776 Warsaw, Poland.
Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno, 61300 Brno, Czech Republic.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Dec 23;22(1):63. doi: 10.3390/ijms22010063.
Lignin, the term commonly used in literature, represents a group of heterogeneous aromatic compounds of plant origin. Protolignin or lignin in the cell wall is entirely different from the commercially available technical lignin due to changes during the delignification process. In this paper, we assess the status of lignin valorization in terms of commercial products. We start with existing knowledge of the lignin/protolignin structure in its native form and move to the technical lignin from various sources. Special attention is given to the patents and lignin-based commercial products. We observed that the technical lignin-based commercial products utilize coarse properties of the technical lignin in marketed formulations. Additionally, the general principles of polymers chemistry and self-assembly are difficult to apply in lignin-based nanotechnology, and lignin-centric investigations must be carried out. The alternate upcoming approach is to develop lignin-centric or lignin first bio-refineries for high-value applications; however, that brings its own technological challenges. The assessment of the gap between lab-scale applications and lignin-based commercial products delineates the challenges lignin nanoparticles-based technologies must meet to be a commercially viable alternative.
木质素是文献中常用的术语，代表一组植物源的异质芳香族化合物。细胞壁中的原木质素或木质素与市售工业木质素完全不同，这是由于脱木质素过程中的变化所致。在本文中，我们从商业产品的角度评估木质素增值的现状。我们从天然形式的木质素/原木质素结构的现有知识入手，进而探讨各种来源的工业木质素。特别关注专利和基于木质素的商业产品。我们观察到，基于工业木质素的商业产品在市售配方中利用了工业木质素的粗略特性。此外，聚合物化学和自组装的一般原理难以应用于基于木质素的纳米技术，因此必须开展以木质素为中心的研究。即将出现的另一种方法是开发以木质素为中心或首先以木质素为原料的生物精炼厂，用于高价值应用；然而，这也带来了自身的技术挑战。对实验室规模应用与基于木质素的商业产品之间差距的评估，明确了基于木质素纳米颗粒的技术要成为商业上可行的替代方案必须面对的挑战。
