Surface properties correlate to the digestibility of hydrothermally pretreated lignocellulosic Poaceae biomass feedstocks.

The study revealed that to a large extent, factors related to physico-chemical surface properties, namely surface wettability as assessed by contact angle measurements and surface content of hemicellulose, lignin, and wax as assessed by ATR-FTIR rather than bulk biomass chemical composition correlated to the recalcitrance of the tested biomass types. The data provide new insight into how hydrothermal pretreatment severity affects surface properties of key Poaceae lignocellulosic biomass and may help design new approaches to overcome biomass recalcitrance.