Lignocellulosic biomass from plants is an important renewable carbon feedstock that can be transformed in energy, materials and chemicals to replace fossil carbon from oil, gas and coal. This alternative source of energy helps decrease carbon dioxide emissions and limits global warming. However, due to its intrinsic chemical and structural complexity, lignocellulose generally requires a pretreatment before the subsequent catalytic and processing steps. The cost of pretreatment represents an important part of the overall process. Thereby it is critical to select the most appropriate and effective pretreatments for economically viable biorefineries.

The goal of this collection is to present the variety of existing lignocellulosic pretreatments and highlight their recent developments. Expected contributions to this collection may include existing technologies using chemicals (acid, alkali, solvents, ionic liquids), physical treatments (milling, extrusion, radiation) and biological actors (fungi, bacteria, enzymes) as well as combinations or hybrid treatments. We believe that visual information should bring critical details about the instruments and techniques. This will increase reproducibility, foster standard lab assays, offer comparison of different pretreatments and develop pretreatments of lignocellulose.