abstract |
A process is provided for producing glucose and other fermentable sugars from a liquid mixture containing anhydrosugars. One example of a process encompasses: 1) water extraction of a anhydrosugar-rich fast-pyrolysis bio-oil fraction that constitutes a residual after removal of volatile impurities, 2) further purification of said anhydrosugar-rich fraction, and 3) solid-phase catalytic hydrolysis of the anhydrosugars to yield glucose and other fermentable sugars. An exemplary application of the process is in the production of ethanol and other sugar-based fermentation products from bio-oil generated via fast pyrolysis of low-cost, high-availability lignocellulosic biomass resources. |