The application of biochars as versatile catalysts and/or catalyst supports for biomass upgrading is systematically overviewed.

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) as novel and green solvents can extract high-purity lignin from lignocellulose in a high yield; however, further utilization of the extracted lignin in the DES is a severe challenge in biorefinery processes. Nevertheless, the potential of lignin valorization can be precisely reflected by unveiling the chemical transformations of lignin during DES pretreatment. In this study, we aimed to understand the possible transformation pathway via thorough characterization of the regenerated lignin and lignin oil and transformation of lignin into value-added products. During this process, alkali lignin (AL) isolated from poplar was pretreated with choline chloride-lactic acid (ChCl-LA) and choline chloride-oxalic acid (ChCl-OA) at 80–120 °C for 6 hours to produce the regenerated lignin and lignin oil. The yield of the regenerated lignin ranged from 44 to 75% after DES pretreatment. During ChCl-LA pretreatment, γ-acetylated groups in the regenerated lignin were observed at low temperatures and then deacylation occurred at high temperatures, which was beneficial for oxidizing lignin and producing phenolic diketones. Additionally, the depolymerization of lignin fractions was the dominant reaction during DES pretreatment, accompanied by partial condensation reactions. More importantly, this is the first report of obtaining S- and G-derived diketones from lignin oil after DES pretreatment. The degradation mechanism of lignin in the DES system has been proposed. This work opens a way to produce value-added chemicals from lignin in DESs, which needs to be researched in the future.

Due to the enormous abundance of lignin and its unique aromatic nature, lignin has great potential for the production of industrially useful fuels, chemicals, and materials. However, the rigid and compact structure of the plant cell walls significantly blocks the separation of lignin. In this study, wheat straw was hydrothermally pretreated at different temperatures (120–200 °C) followed by post-treatment with 70% ethanol containing 1% NaOH to improve the isolation of lignin. Results demonstrated that the content of associated carbohydrates of the lignin fractions was gradually reduced with the increment of the hydrothermal severity. The structure of the lignins changed regularly with the increase of the pretreatment temperature from 120 to 200 °C. In particular, the contents ofβ-O-4′,β-β′,β-5′ linkages and aliphatic OH in the lignins showed a tendency of decrease, while the content of phenolic OH and thermal stability of the lignin fractions increased steadily as the increment of the pretreatment temperature.

The biorefinery based on an effective and economical process is to fractionate the three primary constituents (cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin) from lignocellulosic biomass, in which the constituents can be respectively converted into high-value-added products. In this study, a successive treatment with dilute acid (0.25–1.0 % aqueous H2SO4, 100–150 °C, 0.5–3.0 h) and alkali (1.5 % aqueous NaOH, 80 °C, 3 h) was performed to produce xylooligosaccharides (XOS), high-purity lignin, and cellulose-rich substrates to produce glucose for ethanol production from rice straw (RS). During the dilute acid pretreatment, the maximum production of XOS (12.8 g XOS/100 g RS) with a relatively low level of byproducts was achieved at a relatively low temperature (130 °C) and a low H2SO4 concentration (0.5 %) for a reaction time of 2.0 h. During the alkali post-treatment, 14.2 g lignin with a higher purity of 99.2 % and 30.3 g glucose with a higher conversion rate by enzymatic hydrolysis were obtained from the successively treated substrates with 100 g RS as starting material. As the pretreatment temperature, H2SO4 concentration, or time increased, more β-O-4 linkages in lignins were cleaved, which resulted in an increase of phenolic OH groups in lignin macromolecules. The signal intensities of G2 and G6 in HSQC spectra gradually reduced and vanished, indicating that a condensation reaction probably occurred at C-2 and C-6 of guaiacyl with the side chains of other lignin. The present study demonstrated that the successive treatments with dilute acid and alkali had a synergetic effect on the fractionation of the three main constituents in RS. It is believed that the results obtained will enhance the availability of the combined techniques in the lignocellulosic biorefinery for the application of the main components, cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin as biochemical and biofuels.

With the increasing demand for dissolving pulp, large quantities of hemicelluloses were generated and abandoned. These hemicelluloses are very promising biomass resources for preparing carbon spheres. However, the pore structures of the carbon spheres obtained from biomass are usually poor, which extensively limits their utilization. Herein, the carbon microspheres derived from hemicelluloses were prepared using hydrothermal carbonization and further activated with different activators (KOH, K₂CO₃, Na₂CO₃, and ZnCl₂) to improve their electrochemical performance as supercapacitors. After activation, the specific surface areas of these carbon spheres were improved significantly, which were in the order of ZnCl₂ > K₂CO₃ > KOH > Na₂CO₃. The carbon spheres with high surface area of 2025 m²/g and remarkable pore volume of 1.07 cm³/g were achieved, as the carbon spheres were activated by ZnCl₂. The supercapacitor electrode fabricated from the ZnCl₂-activated carbon spheres demonstrated high specific capacitance of 218 F/g at 0.2 A/g in 6 M KOH in a three-electrode system. A symmetric supercapacitor was assembled in 2 M Li₂SO₄ electrolyte, and the carbon spheres activated by ZnCl₂ showed excellent electrochemical performance with high specific capacitance (137 F/g at 0.5 A/g), energy densities (15.4 Wh/kg), and good cyclic stability (95% capacitance retention over 2000 cycles).