Abstract:
Most of the crop plants contain about 30% of hemicelluloses comprising D-xylose and D-arabinose. One of the
major limitation for the use of pentose sugars is that high purity grade D-xylose and D-arabinose are yet to be
produced as commodity chemicals. Research and developmental activities are going on in this direction for their
use as platform intermediates through economically viable strategies. During chemical pretreatment of biomass,
the pentose sugars were generated in the liquid stream along with other compounds. This contains glucose,
proteins, phenolic compounds, minerals and acids other than pentose sugars. Arabinose is present in small
amounts, which can be used for the economic production of value added compound, xylitol. The present review
discusses the recent trends and developments as well as challenges and opportunities in the utilization of pentose
sugars generated from lignocellulosic biomass for the production of value added compounds.
