Hydrothermal upgrading of biomass to biofuel; studies on some monosaccharide model compounds.

During the hydrothermal upgrading of biomass, hydrolysis to glucose is an important step. To elucidate some of the reaction pathways that follow this initial hydrolysis, the hydrothermal treatment (340 degrees C, 27.5 MPa, 25-204 s) of dilute (50 mM) solutions of D-glucose and some other monosaccharides were studied.