A New Process to Resource Rice Hull

A new process to resource rice hull was proposed for minimizing the wastes and getting the maximum yield of saccharide. It included three steps, i.e., continuous steam explosion step, continuous near-critical water reactions step and combustion step. The influences of temperature and residence time on the yields of water soluble products and the contents of different components in the solid residue were studied. With the optimized conditions, about 80% of the carbon in the rice hull could be converted into aqueous phase products in which the yield of oligomers and monose could be over 40%(wt). From the analyses of different components in the solid residues, hemi-cellulose was decomposed mainly in the steam explosion step while cellulose was decomposed in the near-critical water reactions step.