Global evolution of research on autohydrolysis (hydrothermal) pretreatment as a green technology for biorefineries: A bibliometric analysis

Based on 6 403 research articles in the Web of Science database from 2000 to 2023, information visualization technology is employed to analyze the literature year distribution, keyword co-occurrence and research hot spots, author cooperation network, institutional and national cooperation network, published journals, and co-cited literature in the middle of hydrothermal pretreatment. Our results show that the number of applied research publications related to hydrothermal pretreatment has increased every year in the past two decades. Among these publications, China (36.5%) is the most active country in the world, followed by the United States (14.6%) and Japan (8.2%), with increasing global cooperation. The Chinese Academy of Sciences ranks first among the institutions in the light of total publication output (245 articles, accounting for 3.82%). Among 955 journals, Bioresource Technology is cited the most frequently. The study is centered on the enhancement and potential evolution of lignocellulosic biomass raw materials via hydrothermal pretreatment for subsequent bioenergy transformation. Concurrently, the domain of hydrothermal pretreatment has progressively become more cross-disciplinary, intertwining with the sectors of microbial populations and genomes.