ABSTRACT
Lignocellulosic biomass is considered to be one of the main materials for the biorefining process to produce various types of value-added products ranging from simple chemicals, for example, biofuels, platform chemicals to complex products, for example, biopolymers. The utilization of lignocellulosic biomass not only benefits industrial manufacturers economically, but it also contributes to carbon recycling, reducing the impact on global environments. Since the last decade, biorefinery processes have been continuously developed to improve their efficiency due to the recalcitrant structure of lignocellulose. However, conversions of lignocellulose biomass to value-added products are multistep processes in the process trains; therefore, the state-of-art in design and operation of the overall biorefinery is required to enhance production yield, reduce production of byproducts, reduce operation time, reduce detrimental effects to instruments, and become a more environmentally friendly process. This chapter provides an overview of the biorefining process of lignocellulose and its value-added products. The challenges in technology and operation to promote process feasibility are discussed to provide further ideas to improve this process to become sustainable and viable in an economic aspect.
