ABSTRACT
Biomass is commonly referred to any plant-derived organic substance. Wood, energy crops, agricultural crops, and aquatic ora can be considered as an important resource of biomass feedstocks. Wood wastes in the form of sawdust, agricultural residue, pulp process wastes, and other wastes from wood processing industries also produce signicant amount of waste biomasses. Cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin are the major components of biomass. Both cellulose and lignin are the most abundant renewable carbon resource on earth. Major buildup of cellulose is glucose units, which has a degree of polymerization of ∼500-100,000. Lignin is a complex copolymer composed of phenyl propane units containing mainly guaiacyl propane and hydroxyphenylpropane monomers. Hemicellulose comprises of glucose, mannose, and xylose monomers and has a lower polymerization than cellulose (Kelly-Yong et al. 2007; Goyal et al. 2008). Plant biomass is a chemical energy buildup produced by the conversion of water and CO2 into carbohydrates using sunlight during a photosynthetic process.
