Bamboo is considered as one of the most important lignocellulosic biomass, due to its rapid growth,
high productivity, low ash content and alkali index1, it has great potential to be used as a sustainable
feedstock for fuel ethanol production2. Bamboo is distributed mostly in Asia, especially in the tropics
and subtropics. According to estimates, Asia has more than 1.8 × 107 ha of bamboo, which is over 80%
of the world’s total3. Moso bamboo is the most widely distributed bamboo in China, accounting for 65%
of the total area of bamboo forest4. The main chemical compositions of moso bamboo are hemicellulose,
cellulose and lignin which make up more than 90% of the total dry mass. And the sum of hemicellulose
and cellulose is about 65%5. In the utilization of bamboo in biomass energy, the chemical composition
and structure could have a significant effect on reactivity during chemical and enzymatic pretreatment,
hydrolysis and fermentation. And, the chemical components of bamboo obtained from different locations
or physiological ages may show varied contents, as well as within an individual bamboo culm. Hence, the
real-time monitoring of the components is of great importance for the optimization of biomass process.
The Van Soest method6 is a traditional wet chemistry method for measurement of the hemicellulose,
cellulose and lignin. In fact, the traditional wet chemistry methods are time consuming, chemical
reagent consuming and laborious, which can’t meet the requirement of rapid and real-time detection in
large-scale industrial biomass utilization7.
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