Elucidation of Changes in Cellulose Ultrastructure and Accessibility in Hardwood Fractionation Processes with Carbohydrate Binding Modules
We have recently presented a sequential treatment method, in which steam explosion (STEX) was followed by hydrotropic extraction (HEX), to selectively fractionate cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin in hardwood into separate process streams. However, above a treatment severity threshold, the structural alterations in the cellulose-enriched fraction appeared to restrict the enzymatic hydrolyzabili