Abstract:
Since biomass is always accompanied by caustic inorganic materials, we have found that the formation of the anion salt of α-hydroxysulfonic acid represent the largest “loss” of the α-hydroxysulfonic acid in the potential reversible acid pretreatment process. By titrating the α-hydroxysulfonic acid salt with strong mineral acid and then reverting the alfa-hydroxysulfonic acid as its primary components, the acid components can be recovered substantially quantitatively.