Ammonium based ionic liquids useful for lignocellulosic processing

1. A method for treating a biomass comprising polysaccharide and lignin, the method comprising:

(i) providing a pre-treatment mixture comprising the biomass at a concentration of at least about 5% w/w, a single ionic liquid at a concentration of at least about 40% w/w, and optionally water, wherein the single ionic liquid is tetrabutylammonium hydroxide; and

(ii) maintaining the mixture under pre-treatment conditions sufficient to dissolve at least a portion of the polysaccharide present in the biomass, wherein the pre-treatment conditions comprise a temperature of from about 35° C. to about 55° C. for a duration of from about 0.5 hours to about 3 hours, and maintaining the temperature of the pre-treatment mixture with less than about 40 MT/hr of steam to process 2000 MT/day of dry biomass.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the pre-treatment conditions comprise conditions sufficient to remove at least 50% w/w of the lignin present in the biomass.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the biomass is derived from switchgrass, pine, eucalyptus, or a combination thereof.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the pH of the pre-treatment mixture is from about 7.5 to about 14.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the single ionic liquid is at a concentration of between at least about 40% and about 90% w/w.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein providing the pre-treatment mixture comprises mechanically reducing the biomass to a smaller particle size.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein after (ii), the method further comprises:

(iii) diluting the pre-treatment mixture with a polar solvent.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the polar solvent is selected from the group consisting of water, methanol, ethanol, propanol, isopropanol, butanol, pentanol, hexanol, heptanol, octanol and isooctanol.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein the method comprises diluting the pre-treatment mixture with from about 2 volumes of polar solvent to about 10 volumes of polar solvent.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein:

(a)

step (iii) further comprises reducing the pH of the pre-treatment mixture with an acid, and after diluting the pre-treatment mixture, the method comprises:

(iv) contacting the diluted pre-treated mixture with a glycoside hydrolase under conditions sufficient to hydrolyze at least a portion of glucan, thereby forming a sugar composition, wherein the sugar composition comprises at least one monosaccharide or oligosaccharide; or

(b)

wherein after diluting the pre-treatment mixture, the method comprises:

(iv) collecting pre-treated biomass solids from the mixture, wherein the pre-treated biomass solids comprise at least about 50% w/w of glucan present in the biomass provided in the pre-treatment mixture, and wherein the method optionally further comprises

(v) contacting the pre-treated biomass solids with a glycoside hydrolase under conditions sufficient to hydrolyze at least a portion of the glucan, thereby forming a sugar composition, wherein the sugar composition comprises at least one monosaccharide or oligosaccharide.

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein after diluting the pre-treatment mixture, the method comprises:

(iv) collecting pre-treated biomass solids from the mixture, wherein the pre-treated biomass solids comprise from about 90% w/w to about 95% w/w of glucan present in the biomass provided in the pre-treatment mixture.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the glycoside hydrolase is selected from the group consisting of a cellulase, an endoglucanase, an exoglucanase, a β-glucosidase, a xylanase, and mixtures thereof.

13. A method for preparing a sugar composition comprising:

(i) providing a pre-treatment mixture comprising biomass at a concentration of at least about 5% w/w, a single ionic liquid at a concentration of at least about 40% w/w, and optionally water, wherein the biomass comprises lignin and polysaccharide, and wherein the single ionic liquid is tetrabutylammonium hydroxide;

(ii) maintaining the mixture under pre-treatment conditions sufficient to dissolve at least a portion of the polysaccharide present in the biomass, wherein the pre-treatment conditions comprise a temperature of from about 35° C. to about 55° C. for a duration of about 0.5 hours to about 3 hours, and maintaining the temperature of the pre-treatment mixture with less than about 40 MT/hr of steam to process 2000 MT/day of dry biomass;

(iii) diluting the pre-treatment mixture with a polar solvent to form a diluted pre-treatment mixture, and optionally collecting pre-treated biomass solids from the diluted pre-treatment mixture; and

(iv) contacting the pre-treated biomass solids with a glycoside hydrolase under conditions sufficient to hydrolyze at least a portion of the polysaccharide, thereby forming a sugar composition, wherein the sugar composition comprises at least one monosaccharide or oligosaccharide,

wherein the method optionally further comprises converting the sugar composition to a fermentation product, wherein the converting comprises fermenting a mixture containing the sugar composition of step (iv).

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the method comprises reducing the pH and the temperature of the diluted pre-treatment mixture and contacting the pre-treatment mixture with the glycoside hydrolase.

15. A method for converting a sugar composition to a fermentation product, the method comprising fermenting a mixture containing a sugar composition prepared according to the method of claim 10 .