TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - FOOD - Preferred Components: (I) (contains potassium (0.2-4% w/w)) is corn stover, wheat straw, barley straw, canola straw, rice straw, oat straw, soybean stover, grass, switch grass, miscanthus, cord grass, reed canary grass, aspen wood, sawdust, bagasse or beet pulp. In the pretreatment step, the acid is sulfuric acid (preferred), sulfurous acid, sulfur dioxide and/or phosphoric acid.    TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Method: In the recovering step, (A) (soluble) (comprises ammonium sulfate, potassium sulfate (both preferred), ammonium sulfite, potassium sulfite, sodium sulfate, sodium sulfite, magnesium sulfate, ammonium chloride, potassium chloride, ammonium phosphate and/or magnesium chloride) is recovered by ion exclusion, followed by crystallization of the inorganic salt, electrodialysis, drying/agglomeration and granulation. The ammonium sulfite salts, sodium sulfite salts and/or potassium sulfite salts are converted to sulfate salts by oxidation before or after the step of recovering. (A) is concentrated by evaporation and/or membrane filtration prior to recovery to produce a concentrated solution comprising the inorganic salt. The concentrated solution is clarified by microfiltration, plate and frame filtration or centrifugation prior to recovery. The pretreatment step comprises a method (batch dilute acid hydrolysis, continuous dilute acid hydrolysis, steam explosion or extrusion). In the step of adding, the soluble base is ammonia, ammonium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide. The pretreatment step is performed at 160-280degreesC (having a pH of 0.4-2) and/or for 0.1-30 minutes. The method further comprises fermenting the sugar stream to produce a fermentation broth comprising ethanol, distilling the fermentation broth to produce concentrated ethanol and still bottoms and recovering (A) from the still bottoms followed by purifying (A) (where prior to recovering (A) from the still bottoms, the concentration of the still bottoms is increased by evaporation and/or membrane filtration to produce concentrated still bottoms, followed by a ion exclusion chromatography using a simulated moving bed (SMB) process). The concentrated still bottoms are clarified by microfiltration, plate and frame filtration or centrifugation, prior to ion exclusion chromatography. The purification of (A) comprises crystallization of (A), electrodialysis, drying, or agglomeration and granulation. (I) is pressed and/or leached to produce a leachate, prior to the step of pretreatment, where the leachate is combined with one or more than one soluble inorganic salt stream obtained from (II), (III) and/or the sugar stream to produce a combined salt stream. The salt present in the combined salt stream is concentrated by evaporation and/or membrane filtration to produce a concentrated salt solution, which is clarified to produce a clarified salt solution. (A) is recovered from the clarified salt solution by ion exclusion chromatography. After the step of enzymatically hydrolyzing, the sugar stream is separated from the enzyme hydrolyzed feedstock to form a solid residue and a sugar hydrolyzate stream. In the pretreatment step, at least a portion of hemicellulose in the feedstock is hydrolyzed to produce sugar monomer (xylose, arabinose, mannose and/or galactose). In the step of enzymatically hydrolyzing, cellulase enzyme is added to (III) thus at least a portion of cellulose in the neutralized feedstock is hydrolyzed to produce glucose. The method further comprises the steps of purifying the recovered inorganic salt to obtain a purified inorganic salt and producing a product comprising the purified inorganic salt. ACTIVITY - Fertilizer.    No biological data given.    MECHANISM OF ACTION - None given.