Semi-Continuous Lab-scale Plant for Hydrothermal or Organosolv Treatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass

Lignocellulosic biomass is increasingly being considered as a potential alternative source for both fuels and goods production. In order to better address the starting material to higher conversion and selectivity in the desired products, the possibility to selectively control the dissolution of the three main constituents of the matrix (hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin) should be pursued. As the three biopolymers are intimately connected one another, a suitable pretreatment step could help the effectiveness of the whole process, by producing cleavage of the biomacromolecules interconnecting bonds and by starting their depolymerization . In this frame, we developed a semi-continuous lab-…