Pretreatment of Biomass

Book excerpt: Pretreatment of Biomass provides general information, basic data, and knowledge on one of the most promising renewable energy sources—biomass for their pretreatment—which is one of the most essential and critical aspects of biomass-based processes development. The quest to make the environment greener, less polluted, and less hazardous has led to the concept of biorefineries for developing bio-based processes and products using biomass as a feedstock. Each kind of biomass requires some kind of pretreatment to make it suitable for bioprocess. This book provides state-of-art information on the methods currently available for this. This book provides data-based scientific information on the most advanced and innovative pretreatment of lignocellulosic and algal biomass for further processing. Pretreatment of biomass is considered one of the most expensive steps in the overall processing in a biomass-to-biofuel program. With the strong advancement in developing lignocellulose biomass- and algal biomass-based biorefineries, global focus has been on developing pretreatment methods and technologies that are technically and economically feasible. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in methods used for the pretreatment of biomass. An entire section is devoted to the methods and technologies of algal biomass due to the increasing global attention of its use. - Provides information on the most advanced and innovative pretreatament processes and technologies for biomass - Covers information on lignocellulosic and algal biomass to work on the principles of biorefinery - Useful for researchers intending to study scale-up - Provides information on integration of processes and technologies for the pretreatment of biomass