From nano- to micrometer scale: the role of microwave-assisted acid and alkali pretreatments in the sugarcane biomass structure.

Background: To date, great strides have been made in elucidating the role of thermochemical pretreatments in the chemical and structural features of plant cell walls; however, there is no clear picture of the plant recalcitrance and its relationship to deconstruction. Previous studies precluded full answers due to the challenge of multiscale features of plant cell wall organization. Complementing the previous efforts, we undertook a systematic, multiscale, and integrated approach to track the effect of microwave-assisted HSO and NaOH treatments on the hierarchical structure of plants, i.