Waste biomass soybeans

Biomass and Biochemical Processes. Phenolic resins have been produced from biomass and using biochemical processes in various ways. In Japan biomass from wood waste or waste from the food industry is treated with phenols and strong acid catalysis and heat to produce phenolic resins (88). Research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has shown that ablative fast pyrolysis can be used to convert a wide variety of biomass feedstocks into a liquid oil. The phenolic rich component can be extracted from this oil and used as a low cost replacement for synthetic phenol in phenolic resins (89). In another approach, soybean peroxidase enzymes have been used to prepare resins from phenolic moieties without the use of formaldehyde (90). 

The end message is that the key for success is in having multiple uses for the microalgal biomass, such that there are many products which may share the financial and environmental costs. The other advantage then is that there would not be as much waste generated. This model is not new. Most successful industrial crops, for example, soybean, com, coconut, have many and varied downstream products. It is the same with petroleum itself and the same must be done for microalgal systems if they are to succeed. 

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