Primary processing

Pre-treatment technologies are used to prepare raw materials so that they can be processed by core technologies.

Biochemical pre-treatments

• Enzymatic (in vitro)
• Fungal
• Microbial
  • Aeration

Chemical pre-treatments

• Hydrolysis
  • Acid
  • Alkali
  • Salt
    • Ionic liquids
    • Sulphite salt
  • Solvent

Physical pre-treatments

• Densification
• Microwave
• Pressure-densification
• Sizing
  • Chipping
  • Grinding
• Steam explosion
• Ultrasonication

Separation pre-treatments

• Physicomechanical separations
  • Centrifugation
  • Filtration
    • Membrane Filtration
    • Pressure filtration
    • Ultrafiltration
  • Sieving
• Physicochemical separations
  • Chromatography
  • Dialysis
  • Dissolution, Crystallisation, flocculation, precipitation
  • Distillation
  • Drying (evaporation)
    • Air drying
    • Nitrogen drying
    • Freeze drying
    • Thermal drying
    • Vacuum drying
  • Extraction
    • Acid treatment
    • Alkali treatment
  • Field-Flow fractionation (FFF)

Thermochemical pre-treatments

• Ammonia fibre expansion
• Dry torrefaction
• Wet torrefaction