Predicting the most appropriate wood biomass for selected industrial applications: comparison of wood, pulping, and enzymatic treatments using fluorescent-tagged carbohydrate-binding modules.

Background: Lignocellulosic biomass will progressively become the main source of carbon for a number of products as the Earth's oil reservoirs disappear. Technology for conversion of wood fiber into bioproducts (wood biorefining) continues to flourish, and access to reliable methods for monitoring modification of such fibers is becoming an important issue. Recently, we developed a simple, rapid approach for detecting four different types of polymer on the surface of wood fibers.