Expanding the Foundations for Applied Lignin Analysis
(2026)- Abstract
- Lignins are aromatic polymers found in fibrous plants, and a major side-product of paper pulping. They are under exploited due to a combination of economic and technical challenges. Valorisation efforts aim to resolve this, but these rely on informative and reliable analytical feedback. The diverse and complex structures of compounds found in lignins makes analysis difficult. This thesis outlines two different aspects of lignin analysis. The first is the quantitative analysis of monomeric products from lignin depolymerisation, which is a mature application seen in the manufacture of i.e. vanillin. Here, the main analytical challenge is the reliability of comparisons across diverse feedstocks and depolymerisation methods. The second is the... (More)
- Lignins are aromatic polymers found in fibrous plants, and a major side-product of paper pulping. They are under exploited due to a combination of economic and technical challenges. Valorisation efforts aim to resolve this, but these rely on informative and reliable analytical feedback. The diverse and complex structures of compounds found in lignins makes analysis difficult. This thesis outlines two different aspects of lignin analysis. The first is the quantitative analysis of monomeric products from lignin depolymerisation, which is a mature application seen in the manufacture of i.e. vanillin. Here, the main analytical challenge is the reliability of comparisons across diverse feedstocks and depolymerisation methods. The second is the qualitative analysis of, in particular process-modified, oligomeric products. Here, more fundamental challenges are present, such as limited access to reference data, and even a lack of chemical nomenclature and taxonomy.
The articles included in this thesis addressed these analytical challenges. In the first article, a GC-FID method for the quantitative analysis of oxidatively depolymerised lignosulfonate was developed and validated, and then applied in a first-of-its-kind comparison of three fundamentally different oxidative depolymerisation methods. In the second article, a cheminformatic toolkit was developed to support the qualitative analysis of lignin oligomers. This included fundamental contributions such as a comprehensive nomenclature, alongside software written in R. This software, named Lignonaut, generates oligomer libraries through virtual combinatorial synthesis. A dictionary-based SMILES translation algorithm was also developed, along with various other features useful in cheminformatics. Lignonaut was applied to chemical space exploration, predictive model validation, and the annotation of high-resolution mass spectrometry data. In addition to the included articles, this thesis also comments on quality control in interdisciplinary studies, future challenges of lignin analysis, and negative results. It also includes more personal stories of instrument troubleshooting, programming, and lecturing. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/955b7632-5e06-423b-989e-e06e896a297a
- author
- Norberg, Mynta LU
- supervisor
- opponent
-
- Associate professor Hawkes, Jeffrey, Department of Chemistry for Life Sciences, Analytical Chemistry, Uppsala University.
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026-05-13
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- lignin, analysis, HRMS, cheminformatics, GC
- pages
- 136 pages
- publisher
- Lunds Universitet
- defense location
- Kemicentrum, Hall A
- defense date
- 2026-06-08 09:00:00
- ISBN
- 978-91-8104-937-4
- 978-91-8104-938-1
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 955b7632-5e06-423b-989e-e06e896a297a
- date added to LUP
- 2026-05-05 17:44:46
- date last changed
- 2026-06-09 22:47:23
@phdthesis{955b7632-5e06-423b-989e-e06e896a297a,
abstract = {{Lignins are aromatic polymers found in fibrous plants, and a major side-product of paper pulping. They are under exploited due to a combination of economic and technical challenges. Valorisation efforts aim to resolve this, but these rely on informative and reliable analytical feedback. The diverse and complex structures of compounds found in lignins makes analysis difficult. This thesis outlines two different aspects of lignin analysis. The first is the quantitative analysis of monomeric products from lignin depolymerisation, which is a mature application seen in the manufacture of i.e. vanillin. Here, the main analytical challenge is the reliability of comparisons across diverse feedstocks and depolymerisation methods. The second is the qualitative analysis of, in particular process-modified, oligomeric products. Here, more fundamental challenges are present, such as limited access to reference data, and even a lack of chemical nomenclature and taxonomy.<br/><br/>The articles included in this thesis addressed these analytical challenges. In the first article, a GC-FID method for the quantitative analysis of oxidatively depolymerised lignosulfonate was developed and validated, and then applied in a first-of-its-kind comparison of three fundamentally different oxidative depolymerisation methods. In the second article, a cheminformatic toolkit was developed to support the qualitative analysis of lignin oligomers. This included fundamental contributions such as a comprehensive nomenclature, alongside software written in R. This software, named Lignonaut, generates oligomer libraries through virtual combinatorial synthesis. A dictionary-based SMILES translation algorithm was also developed, along with various other features useful in cheminformatics. Lignonaut was applied to chemical space exploration, predictive model validation, and the annotation of high-resolution mass spectrometry data. In addition to the included articles, this thesis also comments on quality control in interdisciplinary studies, future challenges of lignin analysis, and negative results. It also includes more personal stories of instrument troubleshooting, programming, and lecturing.}},
author = {{Norberg, Mynta}},
isbn = {{978-91-8104-937-4}},
keywords = {{lignin; analysis; HRMS; cheminformatics; GC}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{05}},
publisher = {{Lunds Universitet}},
school = {{Lund University}},
title = {{Expanding the Foundations for Applied Lignin Analysis}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/249287897/Avhandling_Mynta_Norberg_LUCRIS.pdf}},
year = {{2026}},
}