Biorefineries are facilities in which lignocellulosic biomasses are converted in a wide range of bioproducts facilitating the transition from the use of petrochemical resources to renewable ones. Organic acids are considered very attractive for their utilization in different industrial areas as building blocks or as final bioproducts leading to a considerable market growth. They are metabolites which are naturally produced by microbials. The production of these molecules by filamentous fungi are attracting more attention due to their ability to hydrolyze lignocellulosic biomasses and to contextually produce different organic acids. Contrarily to a lot of other microorganisms, fungi have the ability to ferment pentoses, broadening the substrate utilization. The integrated use of lignocellulosic biomasses as material input and fungi as biocatalyst can contribute to make biorefineries more successful. This review gives an overview about the lignocellulosic biomass structure and hydrolysis, fungal morphology, and how they are connected. Further, it describes some relevant organic acids with regard to their processes, biocatalysts, industrial applications, and market considerations.
Within a biorefinery platform several conversion steps such as pretreatment, saccharification, fermentation and downstream processing are necessary to obtain the final bio-based product(s) from lignocellulosic biomass. The structural composition of the biomass, especially the lignin content, determines the necessary pretreatment steps. To obtain sugar monomers, the hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass is an essential step. This work examines the impact of different pretreatments on the sugar release during biocatalysis. Even without prior pretreatment the biocatalysis of low lignin biomass achieves glucose yields of up to 93 %, while the biocatalysis of high lignin biomass requires an upstream hydrothermal procedure to achieve a glucose yield of 74 %.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.