The complexity of a given biomass type is reflected in the relationship between its structural and carbohydrate components. The factors that contribute to biomass recalcitrance include: crystallinity and degree of polymerization of cellulose; Accessible surface area (or porosity); protection of cellulose by lignin; cellulose sheathing by hemicellulose; and fibre strength (Mosier et al. 2005a, b). It is this variability that accounts for differences in the digestibility/hydrolysis of a given biomass feedstock. Removal of lignin enhances biomassdigestibility up to the point where the effect of lignin present is no longer sufficient to limit enzymatic hydrolysis or microbial digestibility (Chang and Holtzapple 2000; Draude et al. 2001; Jeoh et al. 2007). It has also been shown that that highly crystalline cellulose is less accessible to cellulase attack thanamorphous cellulose (Chang andHoltzapple 2000), and that cellulose accessibility to cellulase is one of the most important (rate limiting) factors in enzymatic hydrolysis when the affect of lignin is minimized (Jeoh et al. 2007). Pointing out that the difficulty is not in achieving good sugar and ethanol yields, but in obtaining good yields at low energy input, Zhu and Pan suggested that bio-based research efforts targeting woody biomass should be focused on upstream activity such as size reduction and physicochemical pretreatment to improve direct microbial utilisation of polysaccharides and sugar yields following enzymatic saccharification (Zhu et al. 2010; Zhu and Pan 2010).
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