Renewable Biomass Utilization: A Way Forward to Establish Sustainable Chemical and Processing Industries

Abstract

Lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks are promising alternatives to fossil fuels for meeting raw material needs of processing industries and helping transit from a linear to a circular economy and thereby meet the global sustainability criteria. The sugar platform route in the biochemical conversion process is one of the promising and extensively studied methods, which consists of four major conversion steps: pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation, and product purification. Each of these conversion steps has multiple challenges. Among them, the challenges associated with the pretreatment are the most significant for the overall process because this is the most expensive step in the sugar platform route and it significantly affects the efficiency of all subsequent steps on the sustainable valorization of each biomass component. However, the development of a universal pretreatment method to cater to all types of feedstock is nearly impossible due to the substantial variations in compositions and structures of biopolymers among these feedstocks. In this review, we have discussed some promising pretreatment methods, their processing and chemicals requirements, and the effect of biomass composition on deconstruction efficiencies. In addition, the global biomass resources availability and process intensification ideas for the lignocellulosic-based chemical industry have been discussed from a circularity and sustainability standpoint.