Ayşe Ezgi Ünlü

By Ayşe Ezgi Ünlü and Serpil Takaç

Lignocellulose is the most abundant component in nature since it refers to plant material. Beyond the enormous utilization of lignocellulose by human being, unignorable amount of waste is also formed simultaneously. Agro-industrial lignocellulosic wastes can cause environmental pollutions if not processed before discharged. An innovative approach for lowering the detrimental influences of lignocellulosic wastes is to consider them as a source of useful products rather than a waste to be decontaminated. Beyond the conventional techniques for evaluation of the wastes, new emerging techniques and the use of new solvents have drawn attention recently. Among new generation solvents, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been increasingly used in the treatment of lignocellulosics to produce value-added products such as biofuels, chemicals, and solvents and also used for the recovery of bioactive phenolic compounds. DESs are used extensively for fractionation of lignocellulosic wastes, often in combination with enzymatic hydrolysis of the biomass. On the other hand, extraction and recovery of bioactive compounds are also under research using DESs. This mini review summarizes the very recent literature reports on the use of DESs in treating agro-industrial wastes within the concept of valorization of biomass.

Part of the book: Agroecosystems