A critical review on analysis in pretreatment of lignocelluloses: Degree of polymerization, adsorption/desorption, and accessibility

Abstract

The pretreatment of lignocelluloses results in changes in the different properties of these materials. In a recent review (Karimi and Taherzadeh, 2016), the details of compositional, imaging, and crystallinity analyses of lignocelluloses were reviewed and critically discussed. Changes in the cellulose degree of polymerization, accessibility, and enzyme adsorption/desorption by pretreatments are also among the effective parameters. This paper deals with the measurement techniques, modifications, and relation to bioconversions, as well as the challenges of these three properties. These analyses are very helpful to investigate the pretreatment processes; however, the pretreatments are very complicated and challenging processes. It is not easily possible to study the effects of only one of these parameters and even to find which one is the dominant one. Moreover, it is not possible to accurately predict the changes in the bioconversion yield using these methods.

Keywords: Accessibility; Degree of polymerization; Enzyme adsorption/desorption; Pretreatment.