Assessment of deep eutectic solvents (DES) to fractionate Paulownia wood within a biorefinery scheme: Cellulosic bioethanol production and lignin isolation

Five deep eutectic solvents (DES) were evaluated to disrupt Paulownia wood structure to produce bioethanol and lignin. The DES formulated with choline chloride:lactic acid provided the most promising result. Temperature (110–130 °C), residence time (30–120 min), molar ratio (1:2–1:9), and liquid-to-solid ratio (8–15 mL/g) were optimized for cellulose recuperation (93% retained in the solid phase) and lignin removal (94% delignification yield). The spent solid was used for bioethanol production, achieving up to 43.6 g ethanol/L (89.7% ethanol yield). Lignin (84% of purity) was isolated from the black liquor and thoroughly characterized by FTIR, 1H NMR, TGA-DTG and SEM, while the liquor after lignin precipitation was chemically characterized for monomers/oligomers, total phenolic content, antioxidant activity and phytochemical profile (highlighting the presence of 25.06, 10.21 and 2.51 mg of syringaldehyde, vanillin and 3,4-dihydroxibenzoic acid per g of initial biomass). Overall, this study show that DES pre-treatment is a promising strategy for simultaneous lignin extraction and cellulose digestibility enhancement. •DES pretreatment enabled the removal of 94% of lignin and recovery of 93% glucan.•0.1% NaOH washing of the solid improved enzymatic susceptibility from 44% to 93%.•89.7% ethanol yield (43.61 g/L) was reached from pretreated Paulownia wood.•Isolated lignin (purity ≈84%) was characterized by FTIR, 1H NMR, TGA-DTG and SEM.•9.31 kg of xylan and 3.03 kg of phenolics (per 100 kg Paulownia) were recovered.