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Updated: Feb 12, 2026

Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Biomass with Low-cost Ionic Liquids
Published on: August 10, 2016
Enhanced saccharification of rice straw using combined ultra-high pressure and ionic liquid microemulsion
Jing Gao1, Caiju Zheng1, Tingru Tan1
1Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Aquatic Products Processing and Safety, Key Laboratory of Advanced Processing of Aquatic Products of Guangdong Higher Education Institution, College of Food Science and Technology, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang, 524088 China.
Abstract:
Energy efficiency ratio is significant in completely estimating lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment. In this work, rice straw (RS) was pretreated by ultra-high pressure (UHP), ionic liquid microemulsion (ILM), and a combination of UHP and ILM (ILM + UHP) at mild temperature. The chemical composition, crystalline structure, surface morphology, and enzymatic hydrolysis of untreated and pretreated RS samples were compared. After ILM pretreatment ([Emim]Ac/cyclohexane/Triton X-100/n-butanol = 0.25/0.15/0.45/0.15) at 500 MPa, 50 °C for 4 h, the cellulose content of the regenerated RS increased by 62.5, 66.2% of the lignin was removed, 37.3% of crystallinity index decreased, and the reducing sugar yield of 89.6% was achieved. All results show that the ILM + UHP pretreatments were more effective than sole UHP or ILM treatment at low temperature.
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