primarily hemicelluloses and lignin
Efficient separation of constitutive biomass components has long
been the major obstacle to the efficient utilization of such renewable
resource. Under such circumstances, novel environmentally friendly
processes have been developed continuously to isolate cellulose
from biomass. Chlorine-free method [2], combined with chemical
and enzymatic extraction [3], ionic liquids [4,5] have also been
applied for isolation of cellulose from cellulosic materials. Except
those methods, steam explosion [6e8] has become a well-known
method for separating lignocellulosic material into its main components. During steam explosion, most of the hemicelluloses are
partially hydrolyzed and a small amount of lignin is depolymerized,
which resulted in looseningfiber with micro-pores of different sizes.
Organosolv process, as a promising pretreatment strategy, has
attracted much attention and demonstrated the potential utilization
in isolation of lignocellulosic biomass [9,10]