Dissolution of biomass from rubberwood with l-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium acetate ionic liquid

Biomass from rubberwood has been gaining interest in view of its availability and being relatively economical. however,due to its complex structure,it is difficult to separate biomass using common solvents. the recent application of ionic liquids as a reaction solvent has offered a new platform for its efficient utilisation. different particle sizes of biomass in ionic liquid have been investigated to develop an optimum process. pretreatment involved the biomass being ground into various particle sizes,dissolved in ionic liquid and the resulting mixture stirred at a high temperature in an inert atmosphere. the dissolution rate was dependent on particle size,thus,smaller particles dissolved easily in ionic liquid. dissolution of rubber biomass was complete in ionic liquid. as an added advantage,the ionic liquid was also highly recoverable. extracted materials were characterised using fesem,ftir and tga. fesem results have shown that morphology of the extracted material changed significantly after dissolution. ftir and tga are in line with changes in extraction ofrubber biomass from the dissolution process.