About this Research Topic
The goal of the current Research Topic is to cover promising, recent, and novel research investigations in the steam explosion pretreatment area. Even if this pretreatment is widely studied and used, there are still open questions related to the SE chemical mechanism, characterization of reaction products, selection of process conditions depending on biomass feedstock and final products, optimization of SE to determine the best compromise between technical, environmental and economic criteria.
We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review and Perspective articles on themes including, but not limited to:
• Role of SE impregnation (type of chemical and duration)
• Chemical and physical biomass characterization during SE
• Impact of SE process on biological inhibitors production
• Optimisation of SE for biological conversions
• Optimisation of SE for various applications (densification, extraction, defibration etc.)
• Improvement of SE severity assessment and comparison
• Economic assessment of SE
Keywords: explosion, biomass, pretreatment, biorefinery
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.