Insight into progress in pre-treatment of lignocellulosic biomass

Cost effective pretreatment is key to commercial success of use of lignocellulosic material (LCM) as feedstock for production of bioethanol. The seasonal nature and annual variability of LCM may enforce the use of different biomass sources as feedstock to ensure round the year production. However, different processing requirements of each material may limit the success of such development and impair the use of many feedstocks due to logistic and economic reasons. The selection of pretreatment technology for different LCM sources in cost effective manner is a major challenge. The recent review articles have provided the details of different pretreatment operations. This article has tried to establish a strong connection between pretreatment options and their combination with prior and post pretreatment processes, which is pre-requisite to success of establishing the commercial facility. The key is lessening number of operations and operating cost of each unit of operation. This paper suggests ways towards appropriate pretreatment processes through process intensification leading to the prospects of sustainable biofuel production.