Integrated lignocellulosic biorefinery for efficient production of furans and photothermal materials

Integrated lignocellulosic biorefineries offer a great potential to valorize all the components in lignocellulose into products, including fuels, chemicals, and materials. However, because of lignocellulose recalcitrance, conversion of bioresources remains a techno-economic challenge for many lignocellulosic biorefineries. In this work, we have proposed a sustainable and profitable biorefinery strategy for lignocellulose fractionation and conversion. In this design, a biphasic solvent consisting of a molten salt hydrate LiCl center dot H2O and gamma-valerolactone (GVL) was initially used for separating hemicellulose from lignocellulose. More interestingly, 100 wt% of biorefinery products from lignin were directly converted to functional photothermal materials by coordinating with Fe3+ for solar-thermal-electricity conversion. Attributed to this rational design, the techno-economic analysis predicts a revenue of 439.3 USD by processing 100 kg of lignocellulosic biomass using the above developed method.

Automated summary

Integrated lignocellulosic biorefineries have the potential to convert all components of lignocellulosic biomass into valuable products. However, the challenge lies in the recalcitrance of lignocellulose, making the conversion process technically and economically challenging. This study proposes a sustainable and profitable strategy for lignocellulose fractionation and conversion, with the potential for high revenue.