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The hemicellulosic component of wood is a potential feedstock to provide simple sugars to a biorefinery. Extracting a portion of the hemicellulose from the wood prior to pulping or manufacturing wood composites allows those sugars to be converted to chemicals such as the furfural family. There are 115 MM dry tons of wood processed in the pulping industry alone. Additionally, short-rotation woody crops (e.g., willow, poplar, cottonwoods, sycamore, and southern pines) that grow quickly can be utilized to generate sugars from both their cellulosic and hemicellulosic portions when the trees are small. In many parts of the U.S., such plantations have been established and are being commercially harvested (Dept. of Energy, 2011).

But lignocelluloses must first be hydrolyzed to free the lignin (cell walls) and depolymerize the polysaccharides to mixtures of sugars. Common pretreatment protocols such as steam explosion followed by dilute acid hydrolysis (usually at >180°C) can result in sugar yields of 80% or greater (Hayes, 2009; Lange, 2007). But other solvents, often alcoholic in nature, are often coupled with water in these pretreatments, leading to the topic of this biorefining project module.

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