Separation of wood components

Wood has three main components: cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. The most widely used separating process of the three components called Kraft only allows to extract cellulose pulp with a 40% performance of wood processed; dissolved lignin and carbohydrates (especially hemicelluloses) are burned to recover reagents and cover the energy requirements of the process. UDT works on the development of new concepts for wood deslignification based on organic solvents in order to obtain the three wood components as products. Besides, alternatives to simplify cooking, bleaching and recovery processes are being developed.