Biorefineries process

Combining fuel and power production, possibly extended with (bulk) chemical production by advanced integrated biorefinery process concepts... 

Air-dried com stover provided by the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute was milled and then screened, and only the fraction less than 2-mm sieve was used in this research. Aspen pulping wood chips (Populus tremuloides) with a pretreatment, which were the intermediates of a biorefinery process, were provided by the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota. Aspen wood chips that passed through a 1 -in. sieve but not through a 0.5-inch sieve were used. Aspen wood chips were pretreated with dilute sulfuric acid to remove partial hemicellulose. 

Bozell JJ, Black SK, Myers M, Cahill D, Miller WP, Park S (2011) Solvent fractionation of renewable woody feedstocks organosolv generation of biorefinery process streams for the production of biobased chemicals. Biomass Bioenergy 35 4197... 

Bioethylene and green PE is one of the successful biorefinery processes. To compete with PE produced from oil resources, the green PE process must be improved and developed continuously. The efficient process improvement requires much knowledge and technology so that ethanol can be manufactured at low-cost from nonfood resources improvements are especially needed in the areas of cellulose pretreatment technology, fundamental ethanol dehydration chemistry, process and equipment development, the performance enhancement of downstream products, and so on. The successful operation of green PE industrial equipment has opened up a new era for bio-based materials, and will accelerate the quick development of the biorefinery industry. The experience developed during this process will be very important for the utilization of biorenewable resources. 

FitzPatrick M, Champagne P, Cunningham MF, Whitney RA. (2010). A biorefinery processing perspective treatment of fignoceUulosic materials for the production of value-added products. Bioresour Technol, 101, 8915-8922. 

There are many strategies for whole cell immobilization playing the biocatalyst role in the biorefinery processes. Suto and co-workers studied the... 

Alriols, M. G., Garcia, A., Llano-Ponte, R., Lahidi, J. Combined organosolv and ultrafiltration lignocellulosic biorefinery process. Chemical Engineering Journal, 157, 113—120. 

Liquid phase catalytic processing is a promising biorefinery process that produces functionalized hydrocarbons from biomass-derived intermediates (e.g., intermediate hydroxymethylfurfural or HMF). Renewable furan derivatives can be used as substitute building blocks for fossil fuels, plastics, and fine chemicals, ° or to develop biofuels based on C5 and C6 carbohydrates (sugars, hemicellulose, cellulose). Currently, Avantium Chemicals in the Netherlands is developing chemical catalytic routes to generate furanics for renewable polymers, bulk and specialty chemicals, and biofuels. ... 

Most promising biorefinery processes/concepts not clear. 

To compete with the traditional fossil-based refineries, biorefineries have to exploit optimally raw materials firom plants and create multiple value chains. Therefore, the concept of a whole-plant biorefinery appears as a more convenient model. Despite the diversity of oil crops, such as soy, rapeseed, sunflower, and palm, the whole-plant biorefinery concept can be applied similarly to all of them. Differences can emerge due to the nature of the plant and the way to recover its seeds containing the vegetable oil. Palm trees, for instance, remain in the soil, and their fruits are harvested, where plants such as rapeseed or sunflower are cut every year. In both cases, the first step of the biorefinery process is to separate the oil-rich seeds firom the lignocellulosic fraction of the plant. 

Civilization biorefineries processing all types of organic wastes from municipals (household wastes, wastewater), food industry restaurants, grocery stores, etc. 

Conversion after separation, biorefinery process streams are subjected to chemical, thermal or biochemical conversions. The output of this operation is a portfolio of biobased fuels and chemicals. Of the three primary operations, conversion is the least well developed for the biorefinery. While the petrochemical industry can describe many high yield, selective conversions of their primary building blocks (ethylene, propylene, benzene and so on) only a scant number of biorefinery conversions, comparable in efficiency and breadth to the existing chemical industry, are available. 

This biorefinery processes starch crops (see Figure 17.2), such as wheat, maize and potatoes, or sugar crops (see Figure 17.3), such as sugar beet or sugar cane. Its most important output is glucose, which can be further used for the production of ethanol and organic acids. 

Green biorefinery processes (see Figure 17.5) include wet biomass, such as grass, clover and lucerne. The wet biomass is pressed to obtain pressed juice and pressed cake. The pressed juice contains proteins, free amino acids, organic acids and enzymes. Lactic acid and its derivatives as well as ethanol, proteins and amino acids are the most favourable end products from pressed juice. 

Creation of a value-added portfolio of fuels, chemicals and materials from each of the three biorefinery process streams that mimic the diverse product slate characteristic of today s petroleum refineries. Although cellulose fiber is profitably exploited by the paper industry, the hemicellulose and lignin components of wood are generally underutilized. 

In addition to the traditional pretreatment techniques mentioned above, fractionation, a newer class of pretreatment, aims not only to improve hydrolysis but also to separate the core constituents of lignocellulosic biomass cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin (Fitzpatrick et al. 2010). This strategy has advantages since each component may be upgraded separately, improving the economy of a Biorefinery process substantially. 

Van WJ, Anderson E, Licata J, Sparks KA, Farmer WR, Mirley C, Bickmeier JA, D Ambruoso A, Skraly F, Ramseier TM, Sivasubramanian MS, Peoples OP, Shabtai Y (2012) Biorefinery process for tetrahydrofuran production. World patent No 2012170793A1 Vandamme EJ, Soetaert W (2002) Bioflavours and fragrances via fermentation and biocatalysis. J Chem Technol Biotechnol 77(12) 1323-1332... 

It can be speculated that advanced membrane technology could separate carbonic acids, higher alcohols, or other intermediate fermentation products from the sludge during biogas fermentatiOTi. But none of these processes is so far developed enough to calculate cost-effectiveness, and integration in an economically viable biorefinery process is not foreseeable. 

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