Biorefining of lignocellulosic biomass to fuels/chemicals has recently gained immense research momentum. Current study reports sequential pretreatment of sunflower stalk (SFS) biomass in a combinatorial regime involving alkali (NaOH) and ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium chloride. The pretreatment enhanced the enzymatic digestibility, and resulted in increased sugar yield (163.42 mg/g biomass) as compared to standalone pretreatment using alkali (97.38 mg/g biomass) or ionic liquid (79.6 mg/g biomass). Ultrastructural and morphological analysis (FTIR and SEM) of pretreated biomass showed that the combined ionic liquid and alkali pretreatment causes more drastic alterations in the biomass ultrastructure as compared to alone ionic liquid or alkali pretreatment. Thus, combined pretreatment led to ease of enzymatic saccharification and consequent increased sugar yield, and this observation was corroborated by physicochemical analysis of the pretreated biomass. The pretreated SFS biomass was subjected to consolidated bioprocessing for its direct conversion to bioethanol in a single vessel.

木质纤维素生物质的生物精制成为燃料/化学品近来获得了巨大的研究动力。当前研究报告了在包括碱（NaOH）和离子液体1-丁基-3-甲基咪唑鎓氯化物的组合方案中对向日葵秸秆（SFS）生物质进行的顺序预处理。与使用碱（97.38 mg / g生物质）或离子液体（79.6 mg / g生物质）的独立预处理相比，该预处理提高了酶的消化率，并提高了糖产量（163.42 mg / g生物质）。预处理生物质的超微结构和形态分析（FTIR和SEM）表明，与单独的离子液体或碱预处理相比，离子液体和碱的组合预处理会导致生物质超微结构发生更大的变化。因此，联合预处理可简化酶促糖化作用，并因此提高糖产量，这一观察结果已通过预处理生物质的理化分析得到了证实。将经过预处理的SFS生物质进行整合生物处理，以便在单个容器中将其直接转化为生物乙醇。