Comment on 'Making the biochemical conversion of lignocellulose more robust'

Zhao, Liu, and Bai [ 1. Zhao X.-Q. et al. Making the biochemical conversion of lignocellulose more robust. Trends Biotechnol. 2023; (Published online October 17, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2023.09.014) Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (1) Google Scholar ] address biochemical conversion of lignocellulosic biomass and suggest, among other things, that feedstocks originating from forestry would not be suitable to use and that biorefining of lignocellulosic biomass would not be a suitable approach. We argue that residual streams originating from forestry and forest industry exhibit certain advantages compared with other feedstocks, that pretreatment or fractionation methods primarily targeting lignin are also worth considering, and that the biorefinery concept has already been demonstrated to be an industrially viable option for valorization of lignocellulosic biomass. Making the biochemical conversion of lignocellulose more robustZhao et al.Trends in BiotechnologyOctober 17, 2023In BriefLignocellulose is an alternative to fossil resources, but its biochemical conversion is not economically competitive. While decentralized processing can reduce logistical cost for this feedstock, sugar platforms need to be developed with energy-saving pretreatment technologies and cost-effective cellulases, and products must be selected correctly. Anaerobic fermentation with less energy consumption and lower contamination risk is preferred, particularly for producing biofuels. Great effort has been devoted to producing cellulosic ethanol, but CO2 released with large quantities during ethanol fermentation must be utilized in situ for credit. Unless titer and yield are improved substantially, butanol cannot be produced as an advanced biofuel. Microbial lipids produced through aerobic fermentation with low yield and intensive energy consumption are not affordable as feedstocks for biodiesel production. Full-Text PDF