This project focuses on an efficient lignocellulose fractionation step, which aims to produce relatively pure streams of intermediates. Currently, there are no methods available to efficiently fractionate lignocellulose into intermediates upstream. Lignin removal is the most logical first step in a biorefinery, which can be achieved through several different delignification techniques. Catalytic processes have been preliminarily reported to efficiently depolymerize lignin into phenolic monomers, but possess the disadvantage of a high cost, and thus need to be optimized. Integration and modeling of the entire upstream processing step, which includes pretreatment and fractionation, is aimed at achieving efficient delignification and lignin depolymerization, followed by separation and targeted treatment of the carbohydrate stream.