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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1997  > September  >
Chemistry Everyday for Everyone
Vanillin: Synthetic Flavoring from Spent Sulfite Liquor
Martin B. Hocking
University of Victoria, Department of Chemistry, P. O. Box 3055, Victoria, BC V8W 3P6, Canada

Cover
September 1997
Vol. 74 No. 9
p. 1055

Abstract
Separation of the lignin component of wood from the cellulose presents an opportunity to access various interesting products from the lignin fragments. The lignin represents availability of a sizable renewable resource. Vanillin, or 3-methoxy-4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, is one of a series of related substituted aromatic flavor constituents, and represents one of the potentially profitable possibilities. Vanillin production from the lignin-containing waste liquor obtained from acid sulfite pulping of wood began in North America in the mid 1930's. By 1981 one plant at Thorold, Ontario produced 60% of the contemporary world supply of vanillin. The process also simultaneously decreased the organic loading of the aqueous waste streams of the pulping process. Today, however, whilst vanillin production from lignin is still practiced in Norway and a few other areas, all North American facilities using this process have closed, primarily for environmental reasons. New North American vanillin plants use petrochemical raw materials. An innovation is needed to help overcome the environmental problems of this process before vanillin production from lignin is likely to resume here. Current interest in the promotion of chemicals production from renewable raw materials reinforces the incentive to do this.

See Correction to this article.

See Letter re: this article.

Featured on the Cover

More Information
*  Citation
Hocking, Martin B. J. Chem. Educ. 1997 74 1055.
*  Keywords
Organic Chemistry, Public Understanding/Appreciation, Consumer Chemistry, Industrial Chemistry, Food Science, and Natural Products
*  History
Created:
Last Updated:
July 28, 1999
June 23, 2005
Link to Letter added (May 2004). Link to Correction added (May 2004). Link to Cover added (June 2004).
  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1997 > September > Page 1055


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