Structure-property-performance relationships of lactic acid-based deep eutectic solvents with different hydrogen bond acceptors for corn stover pretreatment

•Ten types of lactic acid-based DES by incorporating differently structured HBAs.•HBAs with short alkyl chain achieved better DES pretreatment results.•The functional groups of HBAs significantly affected DES pretreatment efficacy.•Hydrogen bond acidity of DES positively correlated with pretreatment performance.•Structure-function-performance relationship of DES pretreatment was clarified. Herein, ten types of lactic acid-based deep eutectic solvents (DESs) with differently structured hydrogen bond acceptors (HBAs) were used for corn stover pretreatment. Among the tested DESs, those composed of HBAs with short alkyl chain were more effective to remove lignin and xylan, resulting in higher enzymatic digestion of the pretreated solids than their counterparts with long alky chain. Also, functional groups of HBAs demonstrated significant effects on biomass deconstruction. In order to interpret the different pretreatment performance of the tested DESs, Kamlet-Taft solvent polarity parameters of the tested DESs were correlated to their lignocellulose pretreatment performance. It was found that hydrogen bond acidity (Kamlet-Taft α parameter) had strong positive relationships with pretreatment efficacy of the studied DESs. These findings not only clarified the structure–property-performance relationships of the DESs, but also provided novel insights into design and selection of DESs for lignocellulose pretreatment.