Assessment of eucalypts wood lignin content by analytical pyrolysis, comparison with Klason and total lignin contents

Analytical pyrolysis can be used to determine the lignin content (Py-lignin) in eucalypt woods with a precision (0.37%) similar to the wet reference methods. Good correlations were found between the Py-lignin results and Klason (94%) and total lignin contents (95%). Besides apparent species-specific deviations, an average difference of 1.3% compared to the total lignin content was observed, well below the 3.9% difference reported for softwoods (guaiacyl lignin). Since Eucalyptus has more syringyl (S) than guaiacyl (G) units, this suggests that S units are overestimated in comparison to G units by analytical pyrolysis, in line with previous findings for different degradation methods, including pyrolysis.

Instituto de Biotecnología

Fil: Alves, Ana. Universidade de Lisboa. Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Centro de Estudos Florestais; Portugal

Fil: Cisneros, Esteban F. Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero. Facultad de Ciencias Forestales. Instituto de Silvicultura y Manejo de Bosques; Argentina

Fil: Balmelli, Gustavo. Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria (INIA). Estación Experimental del Norte. Programa Nacional de Investigación en producción Forestal; Uruguay

Fil: Marcucci Poltri, Susana Noemi. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Agrobiotecnología y Biología Molecular; Argentina

Fil: Marcucci Poltri, Susana Noemi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

Fil: Rodrigues, Jose. Universidade de Lisboa. Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Centro de Estudos Florestais; Portugal