Life cycle assessment of revalorization of lignocellulose for the development of biorefineries

Lignocellulose revalorization has emerged as a major solution to mitigate the increasing energy demand of the growing population. Lignocellulosic biomass is considered the building block of plant cell walls and is mainly composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The biomass needs to be processed efficiently to produce value-added products and bioenergy. Therefore, this study aims to systematically review various conversion technologies, like thermal conversion, and biological pretreatments available to achieve this. The use of the biological pretreatment method is cost-effective and eco-friendly. Many microorganisms, different strains of bacteria, fungus, etc., are used here to exploit their cellulolytic and ligninolytic properties. It covers the life cycle assessment of lignocellulose pretreatment, downstream processing for conversion of lignocellulose to biofuel, and techno-economic analysis. The attention has also been given to the development of biorefineries to enhance the production efficiency of bioenergy from the lignocellulosic biomass.