Pretreatment and Thermochemical and Biological Processing of Biomass

Abstract

Pretreated biomass can efficiently convert to desirable products or energy through two main platforms: thermochemical or biological. Thermochemical conversion technologies involve thermo-decomposition of biomass into products. Biological conversion mainly involves conversion of biomass to sugars for fermentative chemicals production with the help of microorganisms such as bacteria or fungi. This chapter discusses the concepts of various pretreatment processes including mechanical, physical, chemical, and biological methods. Pretreatment helps alter the physical properties and chemical composition of biomass, and makes it more suitable for conversion. Bioconversion of biomass into products through fermentation is a very flexible process which could lead to a wide range of products including biofuels, biochemicals, or biomaterials.

Acid hydrolysis of hemicellulose from Ipomoea arborescens: kinetics of xylose production

“…Several materials have been investigated and tested with different kinds of physical, chemical, physicochemical and biological pretreatments (Brienzo, 2009;Pingali, 2010;Salvi, 2010;Thomas Ingram, 2011;Silva, 2011;Lam, et al, 2015). Chemical pretreatment has resulted in an effective and economic process to break down or remove interactions between lignin, hemicellulose and cellulose (Lynd, 1996;Mosier, 2005;Eggeman, 2005).…”

Development of a microwave pretreatment for the extraction of active compounds from natural by products

“…For each experimental point, vials were filled with the proper solid-liquid ratio up to 20 mL and, after being homogenized for 5 minutes at ambient temperature, placed in the microwave. Since high power has been proved to provide better results (Lam et al, 2015), a constant power of 300 W was fixed. The control temperature of the equipment turned the power on and off to achieve the set temperature.…”