Fig. 4

Effect of the pressure difference in explosive decompression. a Weight-average particle size of spruce wood chips after steam explosion pretreatments. b Cellulose digestibility after steam explosion pretreatments. Cellulose conversion to glucose is expressed as % of pretreated biomass content. Pretreatment conditions: log R ₀ = 5.0 (T = 235 °C, t = 10 min); hydrolysis conditions: 1 %w/w cellulose, 60 FPU g⁻¹ cellulose