Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass

Abstract

Biofuels produced from various lignocellulosic materials have the potential to be a valuable substitute for, or complement to, gasoline. Many physicochemical structural and compositional factors hinder the hydrolysis of cellulose present in biomass to sugars and other organic compounds that can later be converted to fuels. The goal of pretreatment is to make the cellulose accessible to hydrolysis for conversion to fuels. Various pretreatment techniques change the physical and chemical structure of the lignocellulosic biomass and improve hydrolysis rates. A large number of pretreatment methods have been developed. Many methods have been shown to result in high sugar yields. In this chapter, various pretreatment process methods for pretreatment of various lignocellulosic biomasses are presented.