Integrating Industrial Waste Into Biorefineries

The session will accept papers related to conversion of industrial waste into feedstocks for generation of specialty chemicals and fuels using thermochemical or biochemical platforms. Development of inexpensive sustainable feedstocks and the associated unit operations is important to achieve economic feasibility of biorefineries. Many industrial processes generate liquid and solid wastes requiring application of environmental management strategies that, in some cases, add significant operating costs. These wastes could be converted into carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and many other important components to generate bioproducts. For example, wastewaters from the pulp and paper industry could be used to produce microbial oils, a feedstock for the production of biodiesel or renewable diesel. This feedstock could be integrated with other conventional feedstocks, and consequently improved the sustainability of the biorefinery and the profitability of the pulp and paper process. Carbon sources generated within a biorefinery (e.g., wastewater containing C5 sugars during pellet manufacturing or biomass hydrolysis) could also be used to produce value-added chemicals. Other examples may include production of specialty chemicals using mixed consortiums isolated from wastewater treatment facilities, and fuels produced from pyrolysis or gasification of agricultural residues and municipal solid waste.