Download Non-thermal atmospheric plasma treatment in liquid media

N°1274 / FC
TOPIC(s) : Non-thermal activation methods
Non-thermal atmospheric plasma treatment in liquid media for polysaccharide
depolymerization
AUTHORS
Raluca NASTASE / INRA NANTES/IC2MP POITIERS, ENSI, BÂTIMENT B1 1 RUE MARCEL DORÉ TSA
41105, POITIERS
Isabelle CAPRON / UR1268 RESEARCH UNIT BIOPOLYMERS, INTERACTIONS AND ASSEMBLIES (BIA),
INRA, RUE DE LA GÉRAUDIÈRE BP 71627, NANTES
Elodie FOURRÉ / RESEARCH UNIT ON CATALYSIS AND UNCONVENTIONAL MEDIA, IC2MP, ENSI,
BÂTIMENT B1 1 RUE MARCEL DORÉ TSA 41105, POITIERS
PURPOSE OF THE ABSTRACT
As viable alternatives to existing fossil resources, sustainable, green and environmental friendly materials in the
form of monomers, oligomers and natural polymers are ideally placed for applications on an industrial scale for
the production of high value added products . However, due to the high stability of these biopolymers, a growing
interest has been focused on the use of plasma technology as a pretreatment promoting depolymerization and
functionalization of these compounds.
Compared to current biomass valorisation methods, the non-thermal atmospheric plasma (NTAP) technology is a
flexible, efficient and low polluting technique which uses highly reactive species (such as ions, free radicals,
electrons, excited molecules) for the modification of the surface properties and functionalization of
polysaccharides .
Among the different types of available plasma discharges, we have focused our attention on the development of a
dielectric barrier discharge reactor applied to a liquid phase processing. To determine the effects of different
chemical characteristics (nature of the gas and solvent) and electrical (voltage, frequency, type of signal) of the
discharge plasma applied on biopolymers, we have realized a first parametric study on inulin, a well-defined
oligosaccharide with a degree of polymerization of 40 composed of linear chains of fructose units connected by
?-(2-1) glycosidic bonds and terminated by one glucose.
The results have shown that plasma plays an important role in oligosaccharides transformation and that the
developed reactor is well suited for plasma treatment of polymers in solution. Depending on the operating
conditions and plasma processing time, the distribution of DP is changed towards lower masses, reflecting the
progressive depolymerization of inulin and the formation of different fructo-oligosaccharides with a degree of
polymerization lower than 5. This lead to a better understanding of the depolymerization mechanism of inulin in
water and of the plasma reactive species involved in this reaction.
FIGURES
FIGURE 1
FIGURE 2
KEYWORDS
non-thermal plasma | depolymerisation | polysaccharides
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] A.G. Cuhna, A. Gandini ?Turning polysaccharides into hydrophobic materials: a critical review. Part 2.
Hemicelluloses, chitin/chitosan, starch, pectin and alginates?, 2010, Volume 17, Issue 6, pp 1045?1065
[2] R.Morent, N. De Geyter, J. Verschuren, K.De Clerck, P. Kiekens, C. Leys ?Non-thermal plasma treatment of
textiles?, Surface&Coatings Technology 202 (2008) 3427-3449