Innovative Biorefinery Processes for Added Value Products from Organic Residues

As part of the climate change mitigation strategy, creating a low-fossil-carbon economy is a target for most developed countries (e.g. EU Bioeconomy strategy; The U.S. Biomass Roadmap, etc.). Agro-ecosystems produce a wide range of valuable organic residues along the supply chain, including crop residues, animal manure and food waste. Biorefineries offer a great opportunity to obtain value from such residues, by re-introducing various products into agroecosystems or other industrial sectors. A biorefinery integrates conversion processes (physical, chemical, and biological) and equipment to produce fuels, power, and added-value products (platform chemicals, bioplastics, enzymes, proteins, nutrients, fertilizers, etc.) from biomass. There are several options and processes to produce these products, though some processes still require exploration. Indeed, while conversion routes based on anaerobic bioprocesses have already been largely implemented, other technologies such as electrochemical processes, algae-cultivation based processes, aerobic fermentation and other technologies are being developed. The success of such technologies relies not only in demonstrating the technical and environmental performance of individual processes, but also in developing more synergistic conversion systems. Such systems need to integrate several conversion processes in the value-chain, using locally available residues within an agroecosystem for targeted production of materials needed by that particular agroecosystem to establish a circular bioeconomy.

The Research Topic will highlight the current knowledge and innovations for (1) technological processes to convert organic residues from agroecosystems into added-value molecules, and (2) value chain organization to maximize the biorefinery efficiency of the organic residues within an agroecosystem.