Boosting the mechanocatalytic hydrolysis of cellulose by using a vibratory disc mill and clay minerals

Abstract

Mechanocatalytic conversion of cellulose to water-soluble cellulose is one of the key techniques for biomass valorization. Previous systems for cellulose conversion suffered from issues that raise production cost such as the use of mineral acids and low yield of water-soluble celluloses. In this work, a vibratory disc mill, which can generate strong shear stress on feed particles, was applied to the mechanocatalytic hydrolysis of cellulose using clay minerals. Cellulose can be converted into water-soluble celluloses with a considerably high production rate, which is approximately two-fold higher than that of a typical attrition mill.