Current Progress on Biomass Pretreatment: The Key for Its Valorization

It has become a global concern for reducing the utilization of fossil sources for energy and chemical purposes. Not only environmental issues such as greenhouses gases increment but also depleting fossil reserves, which became the reason to quest for new and renewable raw materials. Lignocellulosic biomass that is abundantly available is being studied as a potential material to provide both fuels and biochemicals. However, to fractionate and disintegrate its main components: cellulose; hemicellulose and lignin is a very challenging step. Different pretreatment approaches that considering energy consumption, cost effectiveness, percentage of lignin removal, further utilization of the cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and environmentally friendly process have been applied. The review covers the recent pretreatment technology that applied physicochemical approach; chemicals pretreatment and application of Deep Eutectic Solvent (DES); biological pretreatment; and high energy of radiation. This study explained a deeper understanding of the pretreatment technologies for developing biorefinery concepts to support the sustainable development of utilization of lignocellulosic biomass.