Rapid Dissolution of Lignocellulosic Plant Materials in an Ionic Liquid

Abstract

Concerns regarding the non-renewable nature of, and pollution from, petroleum derived energy and commercial products has led to the concept of a biomass economy. As part of this vision for a society based on sustainable biomaterials, proposed biorefineries need to tackle the challenges of taking a wide diversity of raw biomass and rapidly and effectively transforming it into functionalizable platform molecules that can be derivatized into industrial and consumer products, or converted into biofuels. A substantial research effort is underway focussed on degrading biomass into smaller constituents using a variety of physical, chemical, and biological processes. One promising technology for the solubilization of biomass is ionic liquids (ILs), which has received considerable attention as a medium for efficient solubilization of a variety of materials. ILs also allow fractional separation when combined with solvent extraction (conventional, and green technologies such as supercritical CO2), precipitation, and adsorption/absorption methods, and to conduct a wide range of chemical reactions using thermal, electrochemical, photochemical, and biocatalytic processes. As a potential pretreatment technology for the biorefineries of the future, we report herein the first rapid dissolution of a range of coniferous and deciduous woods and grassy lignocellulosic plant materials in an IL using microwave radiation.