Lignocellulose pretreatment: A versatile platform for in situ valorisation

The fate of lignocellulose valorisation resonates with pretreatment technology, which involves both transformation and fractionation to attain the upgrading demands. In fact, pretreatment is not only about tackling biomass recalcitrance, but also a multifunctional transformation process. This contrasts a traditional practice that prioritizes fractionation, where the importance of the pretreatment has been mostly evaluated with an emphasis on its impact on downstream processes such as enzymatic hydrolysis/fermentation of cellulose and depolymerization of lignin. Indeed, most of biomass pretreatment-oriented reviews have mainly focused on classification of pretreatment methods and their mechanisms with respect to lignin removal also called "Dealing with recalcitrance". This review presents a new perspective on the multifunctional aspects of pretreatment in the context of processing with concurrent valorisation. Lignocellulose pretreatment is presented as a versatile platform for in situ production of valuable platform products (e.g., phenolics, xylooligosaccharides, furan aldehydes, organic acids etc.). Moreover, pretreatment strategies for intensification of in situ valorisation, and trade-off/win-win pretreatment tendencies are discussed.