With, implementing innovative, environmentally sound and cost-effective production technologies for a variety of products, the integrated biorefinery is increasing the availability and use of bioenergy and bio-based products. The main objective of a biorefinery is to produce high-value low volume and low-value high-volume products by a series of producing processes. The processes are designed to maximize the valued products while minimizing the waste streams by converting low-value high-volume intermediates into energy. The high-value products can enhance the profitability, and the high-volume fuels will help to meet the global energy demand. The power produced from a biorefinery can also help to reduce the overall cost. Figure 1 shows the elements of a biorefinery, in which biomass is used to produce various useful products such as fuel, power, and chemicals by biological and chemical conversion processes [13].

Traditionally, the matured biorefinery pathways include bioconversion (aerobic and anaerobic digestion) and chemical conversion (bio-pulping). There are two most promising emerging biorefinery platforms. One is the sugar platform and the other is the thermo­chemical platform (syngas platform). In sugar biorefineries platform, biomass will be broken down into different types of component sugars for fermentation or other biological processing into various fuels and chemicals. In thermo-chemical biorefineries platform, biomass will be synthesized hydrogen and carbon monoxide or pyrolysis oil, the various components of which could be directly used as fuel [19].