%0 Journal Article %J ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering %D 2016 %T Imidazole: Prospect Solvent for Lignocellulosic Biomass Fractionation and Delignification %A Morais, A.R.C.a b %A Pinto, J.V.c %A Nunes, D.c %A Roseiro, L.B.a %A Oliveira, M.C.d %A Fortunato, E.c %A Bogel-Łukasik, R.a %I American Chemical Society %K Biomass %K Biorefineries %K Capillary electrophoresis %K Cellulose %K Cost effectiveness %K Crystallinities %K Delignification %K Enzymatic hydrolysis %K Fractionation %K Green solvents %K Hemicelluloses %K Hydrolysis %K Imidazole %K Lignin %K Lignocellulose %K Molecular biology %K Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy %K Pre-Treatment %K Pretreatment %K Recovery %K Refiners %K Solvents %K Straw %P 1643-1652 %R 10.1021/acssuschemeng.5b01600 %U https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84960155445&doi=10.1021%2facssuschemeng.5b01600&partnerID=40&md5=9e7c11cfa0ddb89e11140b438c1ceb51 %V 4 %X The future widespread production of biomass-derived fuels, chemicals, and materials requires cost-effective processing of sustainable feedstock. The use of imidazole as a solvent for biomass creates a novel approach that helps to accomplish this idea in a green fashion. This work proposes imidazole as a novel solvent for wheat straw pretreatment, which allowed the production of cellulose- and hemicellulose-rich fractions and added-value products from depolymerization of lignin. Various temperatures (110, 140, and 170 °C) and processing times (1, 2, and 4 h) of pretreatment were investigated. Both cellulose and hemicellulose recovery were highly dependent on reaction temperature. The best result for the recovery of cellulose-rich material was obtained at 170 °C for 2 h, achieving 62.4% w·w-1, whereas native wheat straw is composed by only 38.8% w·w-1 cellulose. For the same conditions, optimal results were also obtained regarding the enzymatic hydrolysis yield (99.3% w·w-1 glucan to glucose yield) in cellulose-rich material. This result was possible to be obtained due to morphological and structural changes in cellulose-rich materials accompanied by extensive delignification (up to 92%). The presence of added-value phenolic compounds in recovered imidazole was analyzed by capillary electrophoresis and HPLC-MS. Vanillin and other lignin-based products were identified. Finally, the high purity of recovered imidazole was demonstrated by 1H and 13C NMR. © 2015 American Chemical Society. %Z cited By 4