A biorefinery can be defined as a facility that incorporates biomass conversion procedures and equipment to generate power, chemicals, and fuels from forest, waste, and agriculture feedstock.
By different numerous products, a biorefinery can take benefit of the accessibility of various biomass streams as well as process intermediates and enhance the value produced from the feedstock.
Bioproducts are formed by altering organic resources into chemicals to make products that are generally produced from different fossil fuels like petroleum. The biorefinery utilizes hemicellulose, lignin, and cellulose from forestry, municipal, and agricultural waste sources and utilizes them as feedstocks to produce different bio-products.
Products comprise hydrogen, ethanol, carbon char (employed as an ecologically sound fertilizer as well as to eliminate impurities from industrial smokestacks), industrial glues, bio-oils, flavorings, and various other industrial chemicals.
These products are utilized in agricultural, transportation, energy production, textiles, pharmaceuticals, building products, paper, and bioplastics sectors.
Classification of Biorefinery Systems
Biorefineries can be classified on the basis of 4 key features:
1. Platforms: Platforms refer to
important intermediates between raw materials and final products. Key
intermediates include:
·
Syngas from gasification.
·
Biogas from anaerobic
digestion.
·
Hydrogen from steam
reforming, water-gas shift reaction, and water electrolysis.
·
C5 sugars, like xylose, and
arabinose, from hydrolysis of hemicellulose and food & feed side streams.
·
C6 sugars from hydrolysis
of starch, sucrose, hemicellulose, and cellulose.
·
Liquid from pyrolysis
(pyrolysis oil)
· Lignin from lignocellulosic biomass processing.
2. Products: Biorefineries can be
assembled in 2 major categories as per the alteration of biomass in a
non-energetic or energetic product. Products are further categorized into 2
types:
·
Material-driven biorefinery
systems: In this, the key product
is a bio-based product.
· Energy-driven biorefinery systems: Whereas, in energy-driven biorefinery systems, the key product is a second energy carrier as power, heat, and biofuels.
3. Feedstock: Dedicated feedstocks
(Starch crops, marine biomass, sugar crops, lignocellulosic crops, grasses,
oil-based crops); and residues (lignocellulosic residues, organic residues,
oil-based residues, and more)
4. Processes: Alteration procedure to
make biomass into a final product:
·
Physical or Mechanical: The
biomass components' chemical structure is preserved. This process comprises
milling, pressing, distillation, and separation.
·
Biochemical: Processes
under low pressure and temperature, using enzymes or microorganisms.
·
Chemical processes: The
substrate suffers alteration due to an external chemical like hydrolysis,
hydrogenation, transesterification, pulping, and oxidation.
· Thermochemical: Severe conditions are applied to the feedstock (high temperature and high pressure, without or with catalyst).
What are the Benefits of Biorefineries?
·
Offers economic progression
opportunities to both the forestry and agricultural sectors.
·
Helps to national energy
requirements by delivering various fuels.
·
Creates its energy,
cleanly.
·
Employs municipal and local
agricultural wastes, leading to fewer disposal issues.
·
Creates chemical
commodities, bioproducts, and fuels in an ecologically sustainable means, for
instance, decreasing greenhouse gas releases.
· Generates an economically competitive production procedure.
To Wrap it All Up
With the requirement for geopolitical energy security, rising energy
independence, and pressure for environmental sustainability, the biorefinery
industry will reach a value of USD 268.3 billion by the end of this decade.
