Lignocellulose biorefinery: Technical challenges, perspectives on industrialization, and solutions

Lignocellulose biorefinery (LBR) is a sustainable platform unleashing the potential of lignocellulose biomass conversion into renewable fuels, commodities, and fine chemicals. LBRs play a considerable role in advancing the circular bioeconomy as the valorization of biomass offers a plethora of sustainable products conforming end-to-end solutions with zero waste discharge at the shop floor. With the technological advancements in understanding the lignocellulose chemistry, pretreatment, and enzyme-mediated biotransformation of carbohydrate polymers into simple sugars with the minimum concentration of plant cell-derived inhibitors, the recovered sugars can be fermented into fuels and green chemicals (organic acids, biopolymers, surfactants, amino acids, among others). However, there is still a huge scope in the development of biomass collection, transportation and logistics, and key processing technologies—pretreatment, onsite cellulase production, enzymatic hydrolysis using less enzyme at high solids concentration followed by fermentation of lignocellulose sugars with the incorporation of appropriate robust microorganisms for fuels and chemicals production employing industrially relevant conditions. Realizing the potential of lignocellulose feedstock, several industries are investing in the development of biofuels and green chemicals. This chapter presents a detailed review of the recent progress in biomass processing technologies and industrialization of LCB.