As the abundant natural renewable aromatic polymer

lignin can be used to produce high value-added phenolic compounds. The degradation of lignin has aroused increasingly broad interests

and there are many methods used in that field to obtain high yield of phenolic compounds under the degradation of lignin

among which the microwave-assisted degrading method has attracted much attention for its advantages which include environmentally-friendly

fast

efficient

energy saving

easy to control

safe and highly selective. In order to understand the current research situation of lignin-degrading microwave-assisted conversion to phenolic compounds

and to predict the future development direction of this field

based on reviewing its research progress

this paper reviews the features

advantages and the mechanism of efficient microwave-assisted degradation technology; and investigates the degradation effect of different catalysts used to lignin under microwave-assisted condition; also introduces the method and effects when adding some effective reagents under microwave-assisted condition. At the same time

this paper reviews the separation and detection methods

characteristics

advantages and application prospects of the products which are produced by the degradation of lignin. Finally

on the basis of all above

this paper looks to the development direction of the studies on how lignin degrades to green chemicals by microwave-assisted method.