I come across a journal reporting pretreatment of a lignocellulosic biomass using formic acid. After the pretreatment, the authors washed the solid with 6 volume of formic acid, followed by washing with distilled water until the filtrate is neutral.
What is the purpose of prewash with formic acid? Does it has any further reaction with the biomass during the prewash?
Look forward to hearing your kind response. =)
I have noticed some usage of acids to neutralize alkaline pretreatment steps. Maybe that is the case here. Please, forward the paper so I can see it in more detail. Thanks.,
From your question, you said the biomass was pretreated with formic acid and washed with formic acid prior to washing with distilled water? were you planning to write that the biomass was pretreated with alkaline comound and then washed with formic acid and distilled water?
If that's the case, the purpose of the formic acid is for neutralization and the washing with distilled water is to remove the traces of the acid on the sample.
In biomass, some elements are water soluble, some are acid soluble. Washing the biomass with the formic acid could effectively remove the high content of soluble salt and acid soluble elements, such as KCl, K2SO4,organic-K/Cl/S, etc.
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