Delignification and hemicelluloses removal are the primary concerns in biorefinery treating high recalcitrant feedstock, and removal mechanisms of both components rely on the effectiveness of the used solvents. The performance of biomass dissociation in current biorefinery is roughly a function of liquid/solid (L/S) ratios over temperature (see figure). The liquid portion is contributed by water and co-solvents; and the error bars showed the standard deviations of different processes. With increased temperatures the L/S ratios were reduced for withdrawing similar amounts of cellulose (80%) from biomass feedstock. The residue lignin contents also decreased with increasing temperature (results not showed), which may be due to the reduced severity of chemicals/co-solvent(s) used in the processes. The broadest ranges of L/S ratios and cooking temperature were observed for the alkaline pretreatment. Organosolv processes cover a wide temperature ranges but not the L/S ratio. Dilute acid and sulfite pretreatment can be conducted at different temperature with wide variety while steam explosion can be only conducted at high temperature (&gt;200°C). Alkaline pretreatment processes used larger amount of water, which may be due to its capability in delignification at lower cooking temperatures. Sulfite and ionic liquor process required less amount of water, but it use smaller amount of fermentation water. It should be noted that the numbers reported here were just to reflect the current status of recently published works with promising performances. It does not represent the final capacities for full-scale applications. Biorefinery chemistry showed the possible directions for selection of different techniques in achieving the three pillars of sustainable development, <i>i.e</i>., economic, social and environmental development.

Review of solvent chemistry toward sustainable biorefinery in biomass-water-energy nexus

2019 Spring National Meeting

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