Fractionation of Biomass using Green Solvents

Abstract

Green solvents show several favorable features to be used as extraction and fractionation solvents, such as their ease of preparation and lower cost, and they can be both non-toxic and biodegradable when prepared with natural compounds. Due to their properties, green solvents' application in biomass fractionation has been extensively studied during the past years. The presented work describes the application of several possible combinations to create deep eutectic solvents with the potential to be used in processing different types of biomass. The results of studies suggest that deep eutectic solvents may have an important ability to dissolve lignin molecules from plants and can realize a mild catalytic mechanism (acid-base) that will activate the checked cleavage of non-stable ether linkages between phenylpropane units.