Meet the editors

Thalita Peixoto Basso received her bachelor's degree in Agriculture Engineering. During this period, she studied the fermentation characteristics of *Saccharomyces cerevisiae* isolated from ethanol industrial processes. She obtained her master's degree from the University of Sao Paulo (ESALQ/USP), Brazil. During this time, she isolated and selected fungi with high cellulose activity for enzymatic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse. She received her

Ph.D. from the Agricultural Microbiology Program, ESALQ/USP, with a period as a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley and the Energy Bioscience Institute. Meanwhile, she worked on the improvement of *S. cerevisiae* by hybridization for increased tolerance toward inhibitors from second-generation ethanol substrates. Currently, she is a collaborating professor and postdoctorate working with metabolomics and proteomics of fermentation processes in the Genetics Department, ESALQ/USP.

Thiago Olitta Basso is an assistant professor in the Chemical Engineering Department, University of Sao Paulo (USP), Brazil. Currently, he is involved with teaching and researching microbial physiology, microbial interactions, and strategies of metabolic and evolutionary engineering for the biotechnology sector. He worked at Novozymes as a senior scientist in its R&D Department, acting as a project leader in yeast physiology and fermen-

tation optimization for traditional (1G) and advanced (2G) biofuels. He holds a BS in Pharmacy and Biochemistry from USP and an MSc in Biotechnology from the University of Abertay, Scotland, UK. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biotechnology from USP, under Andreas Gombert´s supervision. Part of his Ph.D. was done at the Delft University of Technology, in the group of Prof. Jack Pronk.

Luiz Carlos Basso holds a bachelor's degree in Agriculture Engineering from the University of Sao Paulo (ESALQ/USP) in 1969, a master's degree in Soil and Plant Nutrition from ESALQ/USP in 1973, Ph.D. in Biological Science from São Paulo State University (UNESP), and postdoctorate from Institut des Produits de la Vigne, Montpellier and Superior Technical Institute, Lisbon, in 1989. Since 1980, he has been involved with yeast biochemis-

try and physiology, aiming to increase ethanol yield using the fed-batch industrial process. During the last fifteen years, he has conducted a yeast selection program resulting in the most widely used *Saccharomyces cerevisiae* strains (PE-2 and CAT-1) in the Brazilian ethanol industry. Currently, he is a senior professor at ESALQ/USP teaching Biochemistry (for undergraduate students), Biochemistry and Physiology of Yeast Fermentation (for graduate students), and selecting tolerant strains for lignocellulosic inhibitors.

Contents

**Section 1**

An Introduction *by Abdurrahman Garba*

**Preface XIII**

Biomass (Pre)Treatments or Conversion **1**

**Chapter 1 3**

**Chapter 2 19**

**Chapter 3 37**

**Chapter 4 63**

Biomass for (Bio)Energy **79**

**Chapter 5 81**

**Chapter 6 95**

The Potential of Biomass in Africa and the Debate on Its Carbon Neutrality

Biomass Conversion Technologies for Bioenergy Generation:

Getting Environmentally Friendly and High Added-Value Products

*María Alejandra Rivera Trasgallo and Adriana Berenice Espinoza Martínez*

*by Elizabeth Quintana Rodríguez, Domancar Orona Tamayo, José Nicacio González Cervantes, Flora Itzel Beltrán Ramirez,* 

Laboratory Optimization Study of Sulfonation Reaction toward

*by Rini Setiati, Septoratno Siregar and Deana Wahyuningrum*

Agroenergy from Residual Biomass: Energy Perspective *by Cintia de Faria Ferreira Carraro, André Celestino Martins, Ana Carolina da Silva Faria and Carla Cristina Almeida Loures*

*by Joan Nyika, Adeolu Adesoji Adediran, Adeniyi Olayanju, Olanrewaju Seun Adesina and Francis Odikpo Edoziuno*

Biomass Pretreatment and Characterization: A Review

*by Anthony Anukam and Jonas Berghel*

from Lignocellulosic Waste

Lignin Isolated from Bagasse

**Section 2**
