**Potential Biomass Sources**

proaches for developing the robust microbial pretreatment strategy have been elaborated in

Section 4 finally devoted to industrial enzymes production from lignocellulosic biomass em‐ ploying various process configurations. Chapter 10 comprehensively reviews the xylanase production, microorganisms, fermentation methodologies and xylanolytic machineries for

We sincerely believe that this book will be a useful source of information for graduate and post graduate students, researchers in the field of life sciences, biochemical engineering, and professionals from both academia and industries. Anuj would like to express sincere thanks to his wife, Meenakshi, and son, Abhay, for their immense support during editing of this book. Silvio Silvério is also thankful to his wife, Deyse, and daughter, Isabela, for their coop‐

We welcome the reader's suggestions to improve future editions. Readers' benefits will be

**Dr. Anuj K. Chandel,**

*"Learning gives creativity Creativity leads to thinking Thinking provides knowledge Knowledge makes you great." (Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam)*

University of São Paulo, Brazil

**Professor Silvio Silvério da Silva,** University of São Paulo, Brazil

the complete depolymerisation of carbohydrate fraction from cell wall.

Chapter 9.

VIII Preface

eration while editing this book.

the best reward for the editors and authors.

**Chapter 1**

**Characteristics of Moso Bamboo with Chemical**

The world's present economy is highly dependent on various fossil energy sources such as oil, coal, natural gas, etc [1]. There are several alternative energies which can replace fossil fuels in the future, such as hydro, solar, wind, biomass and ocean thermal energy. Among these energy sources, biomass is the only carbon-based sustainable energy and is utilized by most people around the world [2]. Furthermore, it is also confirmed that the petroleum-based fuels can be replaced by biomass fuels such as bioethanol, bio-diesel, bio-hydrogen, which derives from agricultural residues, forestry residues, municipal solid waste, manufacturing waste, vegetable oils, dedicated energy crops, etc [3]. Recently, it is a growing interest in manufac‐ turing bioethanol using biomass materials. It is well known that production of ethanol from biomass includes three major processes, such as pretreatment, hydrolysis, and fermentation. One of the most important processes is biomass pretreatment in the production of biofuel. Biomass pretreatment can remove lignin and hemicelluloses, which significantly enhance the hydrolysis of cellulose. It is required to alter the biomass macroscopic and microscopic size and structure as well as its submicroscopic structural and chemical composition to facilitate rapid and efficient hydrolysis of carbohydrates to fermentable sugars [4]. Figure 1 shows

Pretreatment technology contains physical pretreatment (mechanical size reduction, pyroly‐ sis, microwave oven and electron beam irradiation pretreatment), physicochemical pretreat‐ ment (steam explosion or autohydrolysis, liquid hot water method, ammonia fiber explosion, CO2 explosion), chemical pretreatment (acid pretreatment, alkaline pretreatment, wet oxidation, organosolv pretreatment), and biological pretreatment [1]. Recently, the in‐ formation of various pretreatment methods is available. Lin et al. found that the yields of glucose and xylose were improved by adding any of the following dilute chemical reagents,

> © 2013 Liu and Fei; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

© 2013 Liu and Fei; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Pretreatment**

Zhijia Liu and Benhua Fei

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/55379

**1. Introduction**

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

simplified impact of pretreatment on biomass [5].
