Financial & competing interests disclosure
This publication contains data produced under an Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI)-funded research program. Z Miao, a research assistant professor, studies biomass feedstock preprocessing and transportation at the EBI, University of Illinois (IL, USA). T Grift, A Hansen and KC Ting are principal investigators of the EBI program entitled ‘Engineering Solutions for Biomass Feedstock Production’. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.