Pretreatment Methods of Lignocellulosic Materials for Biofuel Production: A Review

Dept of Biotechnology, BIT, Mesra, Ranchi-835215. Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Energy Plantation Demonstration Project Centre. Department of Botany, University of Rajasthan,Jaipur – 302 004, India. Corresponding Author: Ashwani Kumar __________________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract The environment of the world is crumbling under the major crisis of global warming and environmental degradation. To face these problems stimulated efforts to reduce CO2 emissions are needed and it is essential to consider green energy solutions. Biofuels offer one of the best alternative options as they have much lower life cycle GHG emissions compared to fossil fuels. These are liquid fuels derived from renewable biological sources. However, the problem of economic production is acting as the major challenge in its acceptance. Though several types of biofuels exist, bioethanol and biobutanol are considered the most economic choices as they could be mixed with petroleum and used as gasohol, and can be used to harness the already existing market of the fossil fuels. Lignocelluloses—the most abundant biological material on earth is considered one of the best feedstocks for conversion to biofuel. Lignocellulosic matter is everywhere—agricultural and forestry residue, weeds, municipal, food and paper industry waste, etc. Using lignocellulosic biomass for biofuel conversion can wind up several economic constraints like biomass cost, collection and storage of biomass, etc. The bioconversion process is however very complex and still requires many innovations. This paper gives an overview of the challenges faced during lignocellulose bioconversion and deals with the latest technologies to overcome one of the major hurdles in the process-the pretreatment procedure. The study tries to present the pretreatment technologies with an overall comparison and their effect on the major feedstock types. __________________________________________________________________________________________