Structure and thermal property of alkaline hemicelluloses from steam exploded Phyllostachys pubescens

An environmentally friendly pretreatment process was developed to fractionate hemicelluloses from dried and water-immersed Phyllostachys pubescens chips by steam explosion followed with alkali and alkali/ethanol extractions. The detailed chemical and structural features of the isolated hemicellulosic fractions were comparatively investigated by HPAEC, GPC, FT-IR, 13C NMR spectroscopies, and TGA analysis. It was found that the xylose/arabinose ratios of hemicelluloses obtained from alkali and alkali/ethanol extractions were 21.5–34.4 and 7.7–9.9, respectively, suggesting that hemicelluloses extracted with alkali had relatively lower degree of branches than those extracted with alkali/ethanol. Hemicellulosic fractions isolated from the water-immersed samples were obtained in high yields and exhibited similar compositions, which can be used as raw materials for production of value-added products. Furthermore, the hemicelluloses extracted with alkali had relatively higher molecular weight than those extracted with alkali/ethanol. In addition, an increment of incubation time resulted in a decreased thermal stability of hemicelluloses obtained from water-immersed sample.