Babe-Bolyai University

Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Redefining biorefinery: the search for

unconventional building blocks for
materials

Student: Covaciu Adela

Speciality: ICAP, I

1. Introduction:
The core of the chemical industry is the conversion of raw materials into value
added products, including fuels, platform chemicals, polymers, materials and
pharmaceuticals. In the last century, fossil resources have constituted the primary
feedstock for a multitude of chemical processes and transformations. However,
sustainability is becoming a global imperative, due to the considerable depletion of
fossil resources, and major scientific and political players have been promoting the
paradigm of biorefinery as a solution for sustainable development. In a biorefinery,
renewable feedstocks (biomass or food waste) are refined/upgraded to yield fuels and
commodity chemicals by means of chemical and biological conversion technologies.
From an economic perspective, it is important to consider that classical fuels
and energy carriers are produced with the minimal leverage as methane (biogas),
ethanol (biofuel) or biodiesel. However, chemists are usually aware that there is
more to chemical molecules than their energy content, as demonstrated by the
continuous search for new materials and medicines. This is why attention has been
slowly re-directed to the development of routes for the conversion of lignocellulose
and waste streams into an interesting platform and specialty chemicals. These highly
valuable and marketable products are usually required in smaller volumes if compared
to fuels. At such scales, the existing side-products from well-established sectors (e.g.
agroindustry, food sector, paper manufacturing and recycling) can efficiently serve as
the renewable feedstock for the production of specialty chemicals and materials.
Therefore, the upgrade of biomass waste can be performed in a substantially
environmental friendly way, avoiding pressure on agriculture to switch to the
production of specific crops with the resulting problems associated with land use
changes, conflicts with the food markets and loss of biodiversity, which are the
strongest problems associated with the production of biofuels.

2. About biorefinery:
Biorefinery has been often compared to traditional refinery, which converts
fossil crude oil into higher value products by optimized processes capable of
valorizing each fraction of the complete crude. Some of the most relevant differences
are that oil is found in nature in the form of a liquid and is characterized by low
oxygen content, while biomass is often solid and composed to a high extent of
oxygenatedmolecules. Raw materials including organic crop waste, wood and straw
are highly heterogeneous and are mostly composed of polysaccharides (usually
accounting for 6080% of the weight) and the aromatic rich lignin (1530 wt%),
which are tightly bound in the form of a nanocomposite.
A biorefinery can be a facility, a process, a plant, or even a cluster of facilities
and provides the integral upstream, midstream, and downstream processing of biomass
into a range of products.
As raw materials, it can use all kinds of biomass from forestry, agriculture,
aquaculture, and residues from industry and households including wood, agricultural
crops, organic residues (both plant and animal derived), forest residues, and aquatic
biomass (algae and seaweeds). A biorefinery is not a completely new concept. Many

of the traditional biomass converting technologies such as the sugar, starch, and pulp
and paper industry can be (partly) considered as biorefineries. However, several
economic and environmental drivers such as global warming, energy conservation,
security of supply, and agricultural policies have also directed those industries to
further improve
their operations
in a biorefinery
manner.
This
should result in
improved
integration and
optimization
aspects of all
the biorefinery
subsystems.

Fig. 1.Schematic representation of woody biomass composition

Often a comparison is made between traditional petrochemical refineries and

biorefineries. A few differences between the two are listed in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Comparison between refineries and biorefineries

3. Classification of biorefineries:
In the past, biorefineries were classified based on a variety of different bases,such as:
Technological implementation status: conventional and advanced biorefineries; first,
second, and third generation biorefineries.
Type of raw materials used: whole crop biorefineries (WCBRs), oleochemical
biorefineries, lignocellulosic feedstock biorefineries, green biorefineries, and marine
biorefineries.
Type of main intermediates produced: syngas platform biorefineries, sugar platform
biorefineries.
Main type of conversion processes applied: thermochemical biorefineries,
biochemical biorefineries, two platform concept biorefineries.
The classification approach consists on four main features which are able to identify,
classify, and describe the different biorefinery systems, viz.: platforms, products (energy and
biobased materials and chemicals), feedstocks, and conversion processes (Figure 1.2). The
platforms (e.g., C5/C6 sugars, syngas, biogas) are intermediates which are able to connect
different biorefinery systems and their processes. Platforms can also be already a final
product. The number of involved platforms is an indication of the system complexity. The two
biorefinery product groups are energy (e.g., bioethanol, biodiesel, synthetic biofuels) and
products (e.g., chemicals, materials, food, and feed). The two main feedstock groups are
energy crops from agriculture (e.g., starch crops, short rotation forestry) and biomass
residues from agriculture, forestry, trade, and industry (e.g., straw, bark, wood chips from
forest residues, used cooking oils, waste streams from biomass processing). In the
classification system a differentiation was made between four main conversion processes,
including: biochemical (e.g., fermentation, enzymatic conversion) (red squares),
thermochemical (e.g., gasification, pyrolysis) (yellow squares), chemical (e.g., acid
hydrolysis, synthesis, esterification) (blue squares), and mechanical processes (e.g.,
fractionation, pressing, size reduction) (white squares) (Figure 1.2). The biorefinery systems
are classified by quoting the involved platforms, products, feedstocks, andif necessarythe
processes.

4. Lignocellulosic feedstock biorefinery:

Lignocellulosic feedstock biorefinery encompasses refining lignocellulosic biomass
(wood, straw, etc.) into intermediate outputs (cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin) to be processed
into a spectrum of products and bioenergy. Lignocellulosic biomass is expected to become the
futures most important source of biomass and be widely available at moderate costs showing
less competition with food and feed production. Lignocellulosic biomass is treated with
among others acid or alkaline agents to release cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, the former
being further converted with (enzymatic) hydrolysis into mainly glucose, mannose (C6), and
xylose (C5).21 These C6 and sometimes C5 sugars are currently predominantly used as
feedstock for fermentation to produce biofuels (ethanol, butanol, hydrogen) and/or addedvalue chemicals, lignin being applied for combined heat and power production to be used
internally or sold. Future lignin applications include added-value chemicals such as phenolic

components or composites while C6 and C5 sugars can also be used as feedstock for chemical
catalytic conversions.
Case study: The borregaard biorefinery

Fig. 3. Production schematic

Fig. 4. Marketable products

5. Conclusions:
Lignocellulosic biomass is expected to become the futures most important source
of biomass and be widely available at moderate costs showing less competition
with food and feed production.
Biorefineries can provide a significant contribution to sustainable development,
generating added value to sustainable biomass use and producing a range of
biobased products (food, feed, materials, chemicals, fuels, power, and/or heat) at
the same time.

6. References:
1. Ed de Jong1, Gerfried Jungmeier, Biorefinery Concepts in Comparison to
Petrochemical Refineries Chapter 1
2. Davide Esposito and Markus Antonietti Redefining biorefinery: the search for
unconventional building blocks for materials, Chem Soc Rev,
3. Martin Lersch Creating value from wood - The Borregaard biorefinery, factory
presentation