The Zhang report is hot of the press. Via our university connections we have access to some of these publications, i.e. they are for internal use, only. It is a 'nice' overview of the POTENTIAL. Has a good section on Hemicellulose .. and plenty of references (incl. 84). Co-author G. Paice is an FPInnovations man (Paprican) with some patents to his credit.

Now this is where it becomes interesting (IMHO): Prehydrolysis of lignocellulose biomass by SO2 produces a high yield of xylose which can be readily converted to furfural and xylitol. The potential economic benefit from producing furfural and xylitol in an existing Canadian dissolving pulp mill has been evaluated [88]. This pulp mill implemented hemicellulose prehydrolysis in 2008. Based on a dissolving pulp production of 518 metric ton per day, CAD $12 and $39 million dollars per year can be generated from production of furfural and xylitol, respectively, in addition to the pulp production.

[88]: Marinova M, Mateos-Espejel E, Paris J (2010) From kraft mill to forest biorefinery: an energy and water perspective. II. Case study. Cellul Chem Technol 44:21–26. Also attached. Good chance this is AVN!? Can you find out? .. I don't have the figures on top of my head, but BBS won't need the 9.9 MW of steam to make FF! ... guess where her market info comes from (ref. 5) ... there is only one report that I know of that quotes this web-page and is also used by Zhang (Ref. [87] .. also attached!)

In the Marinova report, she also refers to a 2007 Towers document about biorefining in Canada (attached).

So here goes my 'parting-shot' for the day (night): It seems that there has been a lot of talk and very little progress on this topic (and in the meantime mills are closing). It appears that continuously the big picture has been looked at. In Africa, we know how to eat an Elephant (one piece at a time). Furfural IS that first bite of that elephant of an opportunity!