While the NaOH test series follows an exponential degradation, a different course can be observed for all samples containing SPC. Mw drops abruptly after 5 minutes. For the SPC and SPC/NaOH tests there is a reduction of Mw by 60% to 3140 g/mol and 47 % to 4220 g/mol compared to the Mw of the untreated lignin. Subsequently, the molar mass increases continuously up to a reaction time of 60 minutes. For the SPC series, a stronger mass increase is seen with a small discontinuity at 45 minutes. The SPC/NaOH samples increase almost linearly from a reaction time of 5 minutes. It is conceivable that the higher basicity of the mixture due to the NaOH steadily ensures that depolymerisation and condensation reactions tend to compete and thus the repolymerisation proceeds in a more orderly manner than is the case with the 3,9x10 5,2x10 6,5x10 7,8x10 9,1x10 8,8x10 1,1x10 1,3x10 1,5x10 1,8x10 3 The values for Mn follow a similar trend as Mw. The largest changes for the ML, NaOH and SPC/NaOH series occur after only 5 minutes of reaction time. The ML series shows no time-dependent changes for Mn, which was to be expected as no major reactions take place in the lignin without additives. However, for the NaOH series an increase can be seen for Mn. This indicates a loss of some low molar mass components, which can probably be described by condensation processes. This can also be seen in the molar mass distribution based on the left flank, which shows a slight decrease (Fig. ). For SPC and SPC/NaOH tests, a reduction of Mn by 11% and 33% can be seen after 5 minutes, which is also clear evidence of a degradation of the lignin. The different decrease values for Mw and Mn are expected based on the nature of their definition.