Advanced mono- and multi-dimensional GC-MS techniques for oxygen-containing compound characterization in biomass and biofuel samples.

A wide variety of biomass, from triglycerides to lignocellulosic-based feedstock, are among promising candidates to possibly fulfill requirements as a substitute for crude oils as primary sources of chemical energy feedstock. During the feedstock processing carried out to increase the H:C ratio of the products, heteroatom-containing compounds can promote corrosions, thus limiting and/or deactivating catalytic processes needed to transform the biomass into fuel. The use of advanced GC techniques, in particular multi-dimensional GC, both heart-cutting and comprehensive coupled to MS, has been widely exploited in the field of petroleomics over the last 30 years and has also been successfully applied to the characterization of volatile and semi-volatile compounds during the processing of biomass feedstock. This review intends to describe advanced GC-MS-based techniques, mainly focusing in the period 2010- early 2020. Particular emphasis has been devoted to the multi-dimensional GC-MS techniques, for the isolation and characterization of the oxygen-containing compounds in biomass feedstock. Within this context, the most recent advances to sample preparation, derivatization, as well as GC instrumentation, MS ionization, identification, and data handling in the biomass industry, are described. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.