Abstract
The increased demands on renewable and sustainable products require enhancing the current conversion efficiency and expanding the utilization of biomass from a single component (i.e., cellulose) to entire biomass components in the biorefinery concept. Pretreatment solvent plays a critical role in various biorefinery processes. Recent pretreatment solvents such as organic co-solvents, acid hydrotropes, ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents showed effective biomass fractionation as well as preservation of high-quality cellulose and lignin under mild conditions. Despite these significant enhancements in biomass pretreatment solvent, there are still many challenges, such as feedstock variety, valorization of non-cellulose components, and eco-friendliness of the applied catalyst and solvent. These technical, economic and environmental obstacles should be considered in future biomass pretreatment solvents. In particular, the development of feedstock-agnostic solvent with high fractionation performance for high quality and quantity of all three major components (i.e., cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin) together would be an ideal direction.
Highlights
Environmental concern and shortage of petroleum-based resources have increased people’s interests in alternative fuels, chemicals and materials
Co-solvent enhanced lignocellulosic fractionation (CELF) pretreatment significantly reduced enzyme loading to achieve over 95% C5 and C6 sugar production from corn stover (2 mg enzyme/g glucan) compared to dilute acid pretreatment (Nguyen et al, 2015)
THF was not recommended as a green solvent from an environmental point because of its high cumulative energy demand and complex production steps at this stage (Capello et al, 2007). Other organic cosolvents such as dioxane and butanol have been applied in biomass pretreatments (An et al, 2017; Teramura et al, 2018); further investigation by considering their sustainability, eco-friendliness, and cost-competitivity is necessary
Summary
Reviewed by: Xinxing Zhou, Shanxi Transportation Technology Research & Development Co., Ltd., China Guoyong Song, Beijing Forestry University, China. Pretreatment solvent plays a critical role in various biorefinery processes Recent pretreatment solvents such as organic co-solvents, acid hydrotropes, ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents showed effective biomass fractionation as well as preservation of high-quality cellulose and lignin under mild conditions. Despite these significant enhancements in biomass pretreatment solvent, there are still many challenges, such as feedstock variety, valorization of non-cellulose components, and eco-friendliness of the applied catalyst and solvent. These technical, economic and environmental obstacles should be considered in future biomass pretreatment solvents. The development of feedstock-agnostic solvent with high fractionation performance for high quality and quantity of all three major components (i.e., cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin) together would be an ideal direction
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