Organic solvent pretreatment of biomass to enhance enzymatic saccharification

摘要

Biomass is pretreated using an organic solvent solution under alkaline conditions in the presence of ammonia and optionally an additional nucleophile to fragment and extract lignin without loss of hemicellulose. Pretreated biomass is further hydrolyzed with a saccharification enzyme consortium. Fermentable sugars released by saccharification may be utilized for the production of target chemicals by fermentation.