Microwave assisted conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into platform chemicals

There has been a growing interest in the production of fuels and chemicals from environmentally friendly lignocellulosic biomass. In this talk I will present our recent investigation of microwave irradiation of Eucalyptus regnans sawdust in water and green solvents to remove a large proportion of xylan and lignin. This work showed that conversion of cellulose into platform chemicals like glucose, HMF, furfural and levulinic acid can be achieved with high conversion and yield, under mild acidic conditions via microwave irradiation at short reaction times, by using only water as solvent.