Biomass deconstruction to sugars

The production of biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass relies on the depolymerization of its polysaccharide content into fermentable sugars. Accomplishing this requires pretreatment of the biomass to reduce its size, and chemical or physical alteration of the biomass polymers to enhance the suscept...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biotechnology journal 2011-09, Vol.6 (9), p.1086-1102
Main Authors: Blanch, Harvey W., Simmons, Blake A., Klein-Marcuschamer, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biofuels
Biomass
Biotechnology - methods
Catalysis
Depolymerization
Dissolution
Economics
Fermentation
Fuels
Lignin - metabolism
Lignocellulosic biomass
Polysaccharides
Pretreatment
Reviews
Solubilization
Solvents
Sugar
White/Industrial biotechnology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The production of biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass relies on the depolymerization of its polysaccharide content into fermentable sugars. Accomplishing this requires pretreatment of the biomass to reduce its size, and chemical or physical alteration of the biomass polymers to enhance the susceptibility of their glycosidic linkages to enzymatic or acid catalyzed cleavage. Well‐studied approaches include dilute and concentrated acid pretreatment and catalysis, and the dissolution of biomass in organic solvents. These and recently developed approaches, such as solubilization in ionic liquids, are reviewed in terms of the chemical and physical changes occurring in biomass pretreatment. As pretreatment represents one of the major costs in converting biomass to fuels, the factors that contribute to pretreatments costs, and their impact on overall process economics, are described.
ISSN:1860-6768
1860-7314
1860-7314
DOI:10.1002/biot.201000180