Study of vanillin formation under oxygen delignification process

The production of vanillin during an alkaline oxygen delignification process was evaluated in this study. The degradation of lignin does not directly occur by oxygen but by the active oxygen species (AOS) generated in the system. These AOS occur by the attack of oxygen on the lignin phenolic side-chain leads to the cleavage of the lignin bond. This degradation of lignin results the formation of vanillin under alkaline oxygen treatment. The results from this study shown that oxygen pressure and system alkalinity both have an effect on the production of vanillin in the degradation of alkaline lignin. It can be explained by the difference amount of AOS generated in the system under various reaction conditions. Therefore, in this research, the production of vanillin from lignin extracted from EFB also observed. The result shown that the vanillin is not the main reaction products in the system and the amount of vanillin was much less than the system using alkaline lignin.