The utilization of plant biomass for production of biofuels, biochemicals and biomaterials in a future lignocellulose biorefinery presents a challenging alternative to the existing petrochemical refineries which can provide the opportunity to reduce the national dependence on imported fuels and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions thereby facilitating the transition to a global biobased economy.
In this presentation, bioprocessing of lignocellulose to fuels and value-added chemicals and materials will be discussed. Bioprocessing steps including biomass characterization and pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation and product recovery will be reviewed. Special emphasis will be given to biomass pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis and ethanol fermentation. Challenges associated with their efficiency and economics will be highlighted and ways to overcome and optimize these steps will be discussed.
Examples for production of various fuels and chemicals from biomass will be provided and explained. While cellulose following its hydrolysis to glucose is mainly utilized in a fermentation process to ethanol, diverse opportunities exist for production of value-added chemicals from hemicellulose and lignin which currently remain underutilized. Alternatives for utilization of by-products from the existing starch-based ethanol plants and future lignocellulose biorefineries as well as their integration will be proposed.