Toward a Zero-Waste Biorefinery: Confocal Microscopy as a Tool for the Analysis of Lignocellulosic Biomass

Lignocellulosic biomass is essentially composed of three components, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, with a highly complicated physical structure. The complex network provides significant challenges for the effective analysis of the components in actual biomass while attempted isolation of the individual components usually leads to cross contamination and hence the need to detect the contaminating components. A new method has been developed for the semiquantitative analysis of three main components in important large volume types of lignocellulosic biomass (pubescens, softwood and wheat straw) using confocal microscopy in the absence of stains of other additives. Standard titration and thermogravimetric methods have been used to confirm the confocal microscopy results. This breakthrough opens the door to quick and easy method for measuring both the ratio of the three major components in biomass and the purity of the isolated components.