ABSTRACT
Unprecedented developments in industrialization and the growing worldwide population have caused a dramatic rise in energy demand, resulting in a rapid diminution of fossil assets. This scenario has led to the exploration of potential substitute energy sources that are environmentally friendly, cheaper, and bio-renewable. The utilization of lignocellulosic waste biomass for the production of advanced biofuels, bioenergy, and high-value chemicals has been appraised as a prospective strategy because it does not compete with the food supply. Nevertheless, the lignin constituent of this biomass interferes with its effective exploitation by acting as a natural blockade. Lignocellulose pretreatment using chemical and physical means for efficient lignin decomposition and improving the level of fermentable sugars is unsafe and costly. Microbe-based biological approaches and their enzymatic armory are potentially capable of disrupting lignin polymers to expose carbohydrate moieties for producing sugars. Laccases are a prodigious class of biocatalysts with a high potential for biomass delignification. In this chapter, we spotlight the laccase-assisted biocatalytic removal of lignin from lignocellulosic biomass and its catalytic conversion to bioethanol.
