Exploring industrial lignocellulosic waste: Sources, types, and potential as high-value molecules.

Lignocellulosic biomass has a promising role in a circular bioeconomy and may be used to produce valuable molecules for green chemistry. Lignocellulosic biomass, such as food waste, agricultural waste, wood, paper or cardboard, corresponded to 15.7% of all waste produced in Europe in 2020, and has a high potential as a secondary raw material for industrial processes. This review first presents industrial lignocellulosic waste sources, in terms of their composition, quantities and types of lignocellulosic residues. Secondly, the possible high added-value chemicals obtained from transformation of lignocellulosic waste are detailed, as well as their potential for applications in the food industry, biomedical, energy or chemistry sectors, including as sources of polyphenols, enzymes, bioplastic precursors or biofuels. In a third part, various available transformation treatments, such as physical treatments with ultrasound or heat, chemical treatments with acids or bases, and biological treatments with enzymes or microorganisms, are presented. The last part discusses the perspectives of the use of lignocellulosic waste and the fact that decreasing the cost of transformation is one of the major issues for improving the use of lignocellulosic biomass in a circular economy and green chemistry approach, since it is currently often more expensive than petroleum-based counterparts.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: [Cazier Elisabeth A. reports financial support was provided by MANE compagny. Pham Thanh-Nhat reports financial support was provided by MANE Compagny. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper].
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