Abstract
Lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks are promising alternatives to fossil fuels for meeting raw material needs of processing industries and helping transit from a linear to a circular economy and thereby meet the global sustainability criteria. The sugar platform route in the biochemical conversion process is one of the promising and extensively studied methods, which consists of four major conversion steps: pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation, and product purification. Each of these conversion steps has multiple challenges. Among them, the challenges associated with the pretreatment are the most significant for the overall process because this is the most expensive step in the sugar platform route and it significantly affects the efficiency of all subsequent steps on the sustainable valorization of each biomass component. However, the development of a universal pretreatment method to cater to all types of feedstock is nearly impossible due to the substantial variations in compositions and structures of biopolymers among these feedstocks. In this review, we have discussed some promising pretreatment methods, their processing and chemicals requirements, and the effect of biomass composition on deconstruction efficiencies. In addition, the global biomass resources availability and process intensification ideas for the lignocellulosic-based chemical industry have been discussed from a circularity and sustainability standpoint.
Highlights
Lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks are promising alternatives to fossil fuels for meeting raw material needs of processing industries and helping transit from a linear to a circular economy and thereby meet the global sustainability criteria
The highlighted path of the biochemical conversion route is the most relevant and studied process and is called the sugar platform route; this review has focused on this platform for a meaningful discussion and insights related to lignocellulosic biomass conversion
Several factors affect the efficiencies of each section of this biomass conversion process and each of these steps is associated with several challenges [3,20]; among them pretreatment is the most energy-intensive single step and affects the efficiencies of the subsequent conversion processes [2,21,22,23,24]
Summary
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