Two University of Illinois scientists have developed an
environmentally friendly and more economical way of pretreating Miscanthus in
the biofuel production process.
“We pretreat the biomass with switchable butadiene sulfone
in the presence of water to break down the plant cell wall, which consists of
cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, the source of biofuels and value-added
products,” said Hao Feng, a U of I professor of food science and human
nutrition who also has extensive research experience with biofuels.