Challenges and Perspective of Recent Biomass Pretreatment Solvents

The increased demands on renewable and sustainable products require enhancing the current conversion efficiency and expanding the utilization of biomass from a single component (i.e., cellulose) to entire biomass components in the biorefinery concept. Pretreatment solvent plays a critical role in various biorefinery processes. Recent pretreatment solvents such as organic co-solvents, acid hydrotropes, ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents showed effective biomass fractionation as well as preservation of high-quality cellulose and lignin under mild conditions. Despite these significant enhancements in biomass pretreatment solvent, there are still many challenges, such as feedstock variety, valorization of non-cellulose components, and eco-friendliness of the applied catalyst and solvent. These technical, economic and environmental obstacles should be considered in future biomass pretreatment solvents. In particular, the development of feedstock-agnostic solvent with high fractionation performance for high quality and quantity of all three major components (i.e., cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin) together would be an ideal direction.

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Biomass delignification with green solvents towards lignin valorisation: ionic liquids vs deep eutectic solvents

Acta Innovations ◽

10.32933/actainnovations.40.5 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 64-78

Author(s):

André M. da Costa Lopes

Keyword(s):

Ionic Liquids ◽

Technology Development ◽

Deep Eutectic Solvents ◽

Environmental Benefits ◽

Raw Material ◽

Green Solvents ◽

Advantages And Disadvantages ◽

Biomass Fractionation ◽

Cascade Processes ◽

Biomass Valorisation

The use of renewable resources as feedstocks to ensure the production of goods and commodities for society has been explored in the last decades to switch off the overexploited and pollutant fossil-based economy. Today there is a strong movement to set bioeconomy as priority, but there are still challenges and technical limitations that must be overcome in the first place, particularly on biomass fractionation. For biomass to be an appellative raw material, an efficient and sustainable separation of its major components must be achieved. On the other hand, the technology development for biomass valorisation must follow green chemistry practices towards eco-friendly processes, otherwise no environmental leverage over traditional petrochemical technologies will be acquired. In this context, the application of green solvents, such as ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DES), in biomass fractionation is envisaged as promising technology that encompasses not only efficiency and environmental benefits, but also selectivity, which is a crucial demand to undertake cascade processes at biorefinery level. In particular, this article briefly discusses the disruptive achievements upon the application of ILs and DES in biomass delignification step towards an effective and selective separation of lignin from polysaccharides. The different physicochemical properties of these solvents, their interactions with lignin and their delignification capacity will be scrutinized, while some highlights will be given to the important characteristics of isolated lignin fractions for further valorisation. The advantages and disadvantages between ILs and DES in biomass delignification will be contrasted as well along the article.

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Ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents for lignocellulosic biomass fractionation

Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics ◽

10.1039/c6cp07499e ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 19 (4) ◽

pp. 2636-2665 ◽

Cited By ~ 94

Author(s):

Dannie J. G. P. van Osch ◽

Laura J. B. M. Kollau ◽

Adriaan van den Bruinhorst ◽

Sari Asikainen ◽

Marisa A. A. Rocha ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ionic Liquids ◽

Lignocellulosic Biomass ◽

State Of The Art ◽

Deep Eutectic Solvents ◽

Biomass Fractionation

State of the art overview of the fractionation of lignocellulosic biomass with ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents.

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Aqueous ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents for cellulosic biomass pretreatment and saccharification

RSC Advances ◽

10.1039/c3ra46149a ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 4 (21) ◽

pp. 10586 ◽

Cited By ~ 100

Author(s):

Shuqian Xia ◽

Gary A. Baker ◽

Hao Li ◽

Sudhir Ravula ◽

Hua Zhao

Keyword(s):

Ionic Liquids ◽

Deep Eutectic Solvents ◽

Cellulosic Biomass ◽

Biomass Pretreatment

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Ionothermal Synthesis of Lanthanide Tetrafluoride Nanoparticles Using Deep Eutectic Solvents

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/opl.2015.532 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 1804 ◽

pp. 25-30

Author(s):

Benjamin R. Furman ◽

Robert D. Gutierrez ◽

Charles K. Baker

Keyword(s):

Deep Eutectic Solvents ◽

New Method ◽

High Quality ◽

Mild Conditions ◽

Ionothermal Synthesis

ABSTRACTWe have developed a new method for controlling the size, crystallinity, and polydispersity of 100–2000 nm tetrafluoride phosphor particles. Five polyol-based deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were downselected out of a set of more than 130 candidates. We analyzed their benefits in synthesizing phosphor matrix particles of β-NaYF4, β-NaYbF4, and β-NaGdF4. We produced green (λmax = 540 nm) and blue/UV (λmax = 450 nm) upconverting phosphors in DES using Yb,Er and Yb,Tm codopants, respectively. The blue/UV phosphor reaction was scaled the up to 25 L, yielding nearly 400 g of high-quality, bright photoluminescent, β-phase product under mild conditions. We conclude that polyol-based DES systems offer a uniquely specialized and useful toolkit for phosphor synthesis.

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Study of dynamics and nanosegregation in ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy

10.31274/etd-20200624-189 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Deyny Leticia Mendivelso-P?rez

Keyword(s):

Ionic Liquids ◽

Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy ◽

Deep Eutectic Solvents ◽

Correlation Spectroscopy ◽

Fluorescence Correlation

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A review of sustainable lignocellulose biorefining applying (natural) deep eutectic solvents (DESs) for separations, catalysis and enzymatic biotransformation processes

Reviews in Chemical Engineering ◽

10.1515/revce-2019-0077 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ana Bjelić ◽

Brigita Hočevar ◽

Miha Grilc ◽

Uroš Novak ◽

Blaž Likozar

Keyword(s):

Special Section ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Deep Eutectic Solvents ◽

Reaction Conditions ◽

Co Catalysts ◽

Biomass Fractionation ◽

Functional Step ◽

Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents ◽

Economic Need ◽

Molecular Compounds

AbstractConventional biorefinery processes are complex, engineered and energy-intensive, where biomass fractionation, a key functional step for the production of biomass-derived chemical substances, demands industrial organic solvents and harsh, environmentally harmful reaction conditions. There is a timely, clear and unmet economic need for a systematic, robust and affordable conversion method technology to become greener, sustainable and cost-effective. In this perspective, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been envisaged as the most advanced novel polar liquids that are entirely made of natural, molecular compounds that are capable of an association via hydrogen bonding interactions. DES has quickly emerged in various application functions thanks to a formulations’ simple preparation. These molecules themselves are biobased, renewable, biodegradable and eco-friendly. The present experimental review is providing the state of the art topical overview of trends regarding the employment of DESs in investigated biorefinery-related techniques. This review covers DESs for lignocellulosic component isolation, applications as (co)catalysts and their functionality range in biocatalysis. Furthermore, a special section of the DESs recyclability is included. For DESs to unlock numerous new (reactive) possibilities in future biorefineries, the critical estimation of its complexity in the reaction, separation, or fractionation medium should be addressed more in future studies.

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