Search results for "Biorefinery"
showing 10 items of 26 documents
Current applications and new opportunities for the use of pulsed electric fields in food science and industry
2015
ABSTRACT Several studies have demonstrated the feasibility of pulsed electric fields (PEF) for different applications in food industry. PEF technology is therefore a valuable tool that can improve functionality, extractability, and recovery of nutritionally valuable compounds as well as the bioavailability of micronutrients and components in a diverse variety of foods. Additionally, other studies have shown the potential of PEF treatments to reduce food processing contaminants and pesticides. This opens the doors to new PEF applications in the food industry. This review focused on some of the most renowned traditional and emerging PEF applications for improvement of osmotic dehydration, ext…
Catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of municipal sludge assisted by formic acid for the production of next-generation fuels
2021
Abstract Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of municipal sludge (MS) was studied at 325 °C and 30 min at 10 and 30% w/w concentration of MS using formic acid (FA) as a green liquid hydrogen donor both in the absence and in the presence of heterogeneous catalysts. Pellets of commercial NiMo/Al2O3, CoMo/Al2O3 and felt of activated carbon ACF 1600 were used as catalysts. The addition of FA at high MS loading allowed to increase the yields in BC from 41 to 62% and its H/C ratio from 1.80 to 2.01 leading to energy recovery (ER) higher than 100%.When heterogeneous catalysts were used together with FA, a marked improvement of BC yields and quality was obtained at 10% MS loading. This behavior was not…
Outdoor microalgae-based urban wastewater treatment: recent advances, applications and future perspectives
2021
[EN] Although microalgae-based wastewater treatment has been traditionally carried out in extensive waste stabilization ponds, recent trends focus on the use of microalgae to apply the circular economy principles in the wastewater treatment sector due to the capacity of algae to absorb carbon dioxide while recovering nutrients from sewage. To this aim, the development of new intensive microalgae-based systems with higher efficiency and level of process control is required. Results obtained for these systems at lab scale are generally promising. However, upscaling to outdoor conditions is often uncertain. Some advances have been made in terms of applying open systems at large scale. However,…
Tuning the photocatalytic activity of bismuth wolframate: Towards selective oxidations for the biorefinery driven by solar-light
2017
The sol–gel entrapment of nanostructured Bi2WO6 enhances the activity and the selectivity of the short-gap semiconductor in the sunlight-driven photo-oxidation of trans-ferulic and trans-cinnamic acid dissolved in water with air as the primary oxidant. Valuable products such as vanillin, benzaldehyde, benzoic acid and vanillic acid are obtained. This provides the proof of concept that photocatalysis could be a promising technology in tomorrow's solar biorefineries.
Robust Mesoporous CoMo/γ-Al2O3 Catalysts from Cyclodextrin-Based Supramolecular Assemblies for Hydrothermal Processing of Microalgae: Effect of the P…
2018
Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a promising technology for the production of biocrude oil from microalgae. Although this catalyst-free technology is efficient under high-temperature and high-pressure conditions, the biocrude yield and quality can be further improved by using heterogeneous catalysts. The design of robust catalysts that preserve their performance under hydrothermal conditions will be therefore very important in the development of biorefinery technologies. In this work, we describe two different synthetic routes (i.e., impregnation and cyclodextrin-assisted one-pot colloidal approach), for the preparation in aqueous phase of six high surface area CoMo/γ-Al2O3 catalysts. Cat…
Hemp flour, from waste to nutritional and nutraceuticals reuse
2023
One of the main objectives of recent years is to characterize and valorize by-products of agri-food industries, as new sources of bioactive components, from the perspective of a circular economy and a biorefinery approach both for environmental and economic reasons. Hemp flour, obtained from Cannabis sativa seeds, is an example of promising bio-sustainability raw material with a high nutritional value that can be obtained from industrial by-products. From C. sativa seeds is obtained an oil rich in fatty acids, mainly linoleic and α-linolenic acids [1]. After oil extraction, seeds can be ground to obtain edible flour. Foods fortified with these “non-wheat flours” would have an additional sup…
Environmental sustainability – aspects and criteria in forest biorefineries
2012
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine what the most significant aspects of environmental sustainability in the forest biorefinery sector are and what kind of criteria should be applied to an evaluation of environmental sustainability in the forest biorefinery context.Design/methodology/approachThe topic is approached by themed interviews in Scandinavia and North America with 23 representatives from the forest and bioproducts sectors. The interviews were examined using the thematic analysis method.FindingsThe study indicates that environmental sustainability may be an important driver for the forest biorefinery business. From the perspective of environmental sustainability, harvesti…
Paving the crossroad of biorefinery
2018
This thesis focuses on anaerobic digestion and, more specifically, on its role in biorefinery and on the dynamic behaviour of the underlying microbiomes. In recent decades, significant progress has been made in the field of anaerobic digestion. Innovative methods, especially highthroughput sequencing approaches, have allowed for a deeper understanding of biotechnologically relevant biocenosis. However, the exact behaviour of the relevant microbiomes under different conditions has not been thoroughly researched. In order to shed light on the diversity of the underlying biocenosis, this thesis compares multiple biogas production facilities in Germany. It also provides the first multi-OMICs ch…
Pretreatment of trace element-enriched biomasses grown on phytomanaged soils for bioethanol production
2017
Abstract Phytotechnologies are a set of sustainable, ecological options notably for alleviating pollutant linkages induced by contaminated soils. However, concerns exist regarding the processing of trace elements (TE)-enriched biomass and the fate of TEs in the end-products. The fractionation of phytoremediation TE-enriched non-woody lignocellulosic (tobacco) and woody (birch, willow) phytoremediation-borne biomasses was studied using ethanol organosolv, soda and dilute acid pretreatments. TE distribution in the process fractions (pulp, liquid effluents and lignin) was further examined. In dilute acid conditions, a wood pretreatment performed at 170 °C in the presence of 2% w/w of sulfuric …
Organics in soda-anthraquinone black liquors from hot-water-extracted non-wood feedstocks
2019
The chemical compositions of black liquors (BLs) obtained from the soda-anthraquinone (AQ) pulping of untreated and hot-water-extracted non-wood feedstocks (okra stalk, miscanthus stalk, and wheat straw) were determined. These under-utilized renewable and widely available feedstocks could provide a cheaper source for producing fiber and precursors for manufacturing green chemicals. These BLs were mainly characterized in terms of carbohydrate-derived volatile carboxylic acids (acetic and formic acids) and non-volatile carboxylic acids (hydroxy acids) as well as lignin. Additionally, in each case, the average molar mass and molar mass distribution of the dissolved lignin were measured. Result…