Fungal Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Materials

Abstract

The biomass must be converted to fermentable carbohydrates through pretreatment process to break down the complex structure to its constituents prior to fermentation. For lignocellulosic materials, lignin moiety is extremely resistant to degradation because of hydrogen bond cross-linking between the cellulose and hemicellulose. Biological pretreatment using white-rot fungi are novel method and environmental-friendly as a method of biomass deconstruction as compared to other conventional means. These fungi can excrete ligninolytic enzymes to degrade lignin although the rate of deconstruction is slow. Hence, this chapter will focus on the fungal pretreatment or delignification process using white-rot fungi as it is an important step to increase the feedstock conversion.