SEQUENTIAL COMBINATION OF ORGANIC ACID AND BASE TREATMENTS FOR CONVERTING LIGNOCELLULOSIC BIOMASS AND CELLULOSE

摘要

Biomass has been of great current interest as renewable sources of clean fuels and valuable chemicals. Lignocellulosic biomass is considered as most abundant resources of biomass, and thus processing lignocellulose into fermentable sugars, furanic compounds, or other useful chemical intermediates has attracted much attentions from many scientists and engineers. Among different approaches, hydrolysis has some advantages including the relatively ower temperature requirement and the potential to tailor the product distribution easily. Many studies on hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass have been directed toward ethanol production by pretreatment, hydrolysis of cellulose, and glucose fermentation. On he other hand, some studies also explored other promising candidate chemicals such as 5-hydroxymethyfurfural from carbohydrates. Despite the progresses achieved in processing each individual component of lignocellulose (i.e., cellulose, hemicellulose, and ignin), there still remains the critical challenge: how to overcome the recalcitrance of the whole lignocellulose composite structure.