SUCROL

Summary The French pulp industry is competing against South American (Brazilian) and Asian (Indonesian) companies which are capable of producing wood pulp at a much lower price, thanks to the availability of a cheaper raw material (eucalyptus, acacia). The definition of a new economical model is the only way to stay alive in this competition. The model which seems the most appropriate today is the paper biorefinery in which all the main wood chemical components are extracted and used in a most valuable manner. This project aims at defining an extraction process for the hemicelluloses present in hardwoods, which will take place before kraft cooking and which will give a flow of pentoses in an appropriate form for chemical purposes, without affecting the quality of the kraft cellulose. The use of pentoses has been investigated to a much lesser extent than that of hexoses. This is due to the fact that the latter are dominant in the agro-materials used today as sugar sources. However the situation is different in hardwood trees and most of the agricultural residues (straw…) in which they may represent more than 30% in weight. The surface active agents industry has recently developed new families of biomass based products (like the alkylpolyglycosides -APG). Their potential is very high but their development is slowed by their relatively high cost. The availability of new sources of xylose at a cheaper price will represent a real breakthrough for the development of new applications for the APG. The synthesis and properties of the xylose-based APG will be investigated.