Dissolution of wet wood biomass without heating

Abstract

Lignocellulose biomass including wood is an abundant, natural, and renewable material, and is a promising fossil fuel substitute. However, there are still no powerful solvents to extract polysaccharides from biomass. Here we report a tetra-n-butylphosphonium hydroxide–water mixture as a potential solvent for wood dissolution without heating. Upon gentle stirring at room temperature, this solution containing 40 wt% water extracted 37% of polysaccharides after stirring for only 1 hour. This excellent dissolution ability was maintained in a wide range of water content.