THE JOURNAL OF KMUTNB

Volume 32, No. 04, Month OCTOBER, Year 2022, Pages 1087 - 1101

Progress in chemical pretreatment of lignocellulose biomass for applications in biorefinerypdf

Theerawut Phusantisampan, Nichaphat Kitiborwornkul

Abstract Download PDF

Lignocellulose biomass is raw material for production of renewable energy and biorefining process. Biorefining process converts lignocellulose biomass to various value-added products, such as biofuels, biochemical, and biopolymers. This process is composed of multi-step reactions including pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation and product recovery. Among these 4 steps, pretreatment is important to the feasibility of the overall process, because lignocellulose has strong chemical and physical characteristics, which cellulase inefficiently accesses and hydrolyzes biomass. Currently, there are many pretreatment methods, such as chemical pretreatment, physical pretreatment, physical-chemical pretreatment, and combined pretreatment method. The selection of the appropriate method depends on the type of lignocellulose. Due to the abundant amount of lignocellulose in nature, it is necessary to develop the biorefining process to convert the waste to value-added products. This concept agrees well with the Bio economy, Circular economy, and Green economy (BCG Economy) to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDG) of United Nations (UN). Therefore, green chemicals for pretreatment are selected with environmentally friendly property, such as ionic liquid and Deep Eutectic Solutions (DES). This review describes the options of chemical pretreatment methods that are developed by researchers. The pros and cons of each pretreatment method are discussed and the room for improvement is suggested. The knowledge obtained from this review will benefit to provide information for further development and research in biorefining process in the future.

Keywords

Lignocellulose; Chemical Pretreatment; BCG economy; Biorefinary; Value-added Products; Biomass

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