Title
Separation purification and characterization of corn stover hemicelluloses
Authors
HELI CHENG QINGHUA FENG DUAN WANG PENG WANG HAO LIU HUAIYU ZHAN YU LIU and YIMIN XIE

Received March 19, 2015
Published Volume 51 Issue 3-4 March-April
Keywords hemicelluloses, corn stover, separation, HSQC NMR, AFM

Abstract
Hemicelluloses were extracted from corn stover with potassium hydroxide and were further delignified with hydrogen peroxide. Physico-chemical properties, including chemical structure, composition, molecular weight and thermal stability, of the extracted hemicelluloses were investigated. As expected, xylan was found to occupy over 85.2% of the total hemicellulose, while the content of arabinan was of about 9.0%. Galactan and glucan were also detected in minor amounts. NMR and FT-IR analyses suggested that, by its structure, corn stover hemicellulose is an arabinoxylan consisting of (1→4)-β-D-xylan backbone substituted in O-2/O-3 by α-L-arabinose residue. After delignification, the lignin content remaining in hemicelluloses decreased from 4.6% to 1.5%. Ultrastructures analyzed by AFM revealed purified hemicelluloses as 40-nm diameter spheres connected to each other.