date:May 27, 2014
stage, focusing on steam explosion, which involves 'pressure-cooking' the biomass, to drive a number of chemical reactions. A rapid pressure-release then causes the material to be ripped open, to further improve accessibility.
They varied the temperature and duration of steam explosion and then used a variety of physical and biochemical techniques to characterise what effects varying the pre-treatments had on the different types of sugars before and after saccharification.
The amount of cellu