Choice of Pretreatment Technology for Sustainable Production of Bioethanol from Lignocellulosic Biomass: Bottle Necks and Recommendations

Sustainable and renewable resources are inevitable factors for biofuel production to meet the energy and transportation fuel demand of a nation. The urge in meeting the energy demand can be achieved by intensified research on agricultural and waste biomass utilization. In recent days, advanced agricultural practice throughout the world generates surplus biomass residues and this can be utilized through aggressive pretreatment technology for bioethanol production. Bioethanol production from food crops was having some ethical issues on cost and availability of potential sources. It has been anticipated that the lignocellulosic biomass to bioethanol transformation process contains several challenges and bottlenecks. Selection of an appropriate of pretreatment technology for individual lignocellulosic biomass decides the economic feasibility of biofuel production process. Scientists from different countries were working on the development of biofuel production in sustainable manner, but the technology abides only at a demonstration level due to lack of process intensification. Recent advancements in processing and conversion of biomass dealt with integration of conventional pretreatment principles to vanquish the bottleneck issues faced in development of sustainable biofuel production technology. This paper reviews the development of intensified pretreatment technologies with their current status and advancements. Several key processes and recommendations for cost-effective and eco-friendly pretreatment technologies were also discussed in details.