The implementation of biorefineries based on lignocellulosic materials as an alternative to fossil-based refineries calls for efficient methods for fractionation and recovery of the products. The focus for the biorefinery concept for utilisation of biomass has shifted, from design of more or less energy-driven biorefineries, to much more versatile facilities where chemicals and energy carriers can be produced. The sugar-based biorefinery platform requires pretreatment of lignocellulosic materials, which can be very recalcitrant, to improve further processing through enzymatic hydrolysis, and for other downstream unit operations. This review summarises the development in the field of pretreatment (and to some extent, of fractionation) of various lignocellulosic materials. The number of publications indicates that biomass pretreatment plays a very important role for the biorefinery concept to be realised in full scale. The traditional pretreatment methods, for example, steam pretreatment (explosion), organosolv and hydrothermal treatment are covered in the review. In addition, the rapidly increasing interest for chemical treatment employing ionic liquids and deep-eutectic solvents are discussed and reviewed. It can be concluded that the huge variation of lignocellulosic materials makes it difficult to find a general process design for a biorefinery. Therefore, it is difficult to define "the best pretreatment" method. In the end, this depends on the proposed application, and any recommendation of a suitable pretreatment method must be based on a thorough techno-economic evaluation.

中文翻译：

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生物精炼厂的预处理：有效利用木质纤维素材料的常用方法综述。


以木质纤维素材料为基础的生物精炼厂作为化石精炼厂的替代品的实施需要有效的产品分馏和回收方法。利用生物质的生物精炼概念的重点已经从设计或多或少由能源驱动的生物精炼厂转向可以生产化学品和能源载体的多功能设施。以糖为基础的生物精炼平台需要对木质纤维素材料进行预处理，这可能非常困难，以改善通过酶水解的进一步加工以及其他下游单元操作。本综述总结了各种木质纤维素材料的预处理（以及某种程度上的分馏）领域的发展。出版物的数量表明，生物质预处理对于生物炼制概念的全面实现起着非常重要的作用。综述涵盖了传统的预处理方法，例如蒸汽预处理（爆炸）、有机溶剂和水热处理。此外，还讨论和回顾了对使用离子液体和低共熔溶剂的化学处理的兴趣的迅速增加。可以得出结论，木质纤维素材料的巨大差异使得很难找到生物精炼厂的通用工艺设计。因此，很难定义“最佳预处理”方法。最后，这取决于拟议的应用，任何合适的预处理方法的推荐都必须基于彻底的技术经济评估。