Green Chemistry and Biorefinery concepts are two approaches helping to develop new and more sustainable processes. The implementation of both methodologies impels to fossil-independent future with bioeconomy based on natural feedstock like biowaste and industrial by-products. The development of technologies for valorisation of these resources is a key role of society in the creation of sustainable and more environmentally friendly future

Lukasik, Rafal M.

Morais, Ana Rita C.

Sustainable Chemical Processes

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Morais and Bogel-Lukasik Sustainable Chemical Processes 2013, 1:18http://www.sustainablechemicalprocesses.com/content/1/1/18COMMENTARY Open AccessGreen chemistry and the biorefinery conceptAna RC Morais and Rafal Bogel-Lukasik*AbstractGreen Chemistry and Biorefinery concepts are two approaches helping to develop new and more sustainableprocesses. The implementation of both methodologies impels to fossil-independent future with bioeconomy basedon natural feedstock like biowaste and industrial by-products. The development of technologies for valorisation ofthese resources is a key role of society in the creation of sustainable and more environmentally friendly future.Keywords: Green chemistry, Biorefinery concept, Value added productsBackgroundMore than 20 years passed since the Rio Declaration onEnvironment and Development was signed. Still now-adays, the declaration is valid and indicates the role of sus-tainability for the future of mankind. The first principle ofthis declaration states that Human beings are at the centreof concerns for sustainable developments, they are entitledto a healthy and productive life in harmony with Nature[1]. This principle highlights the objectives of sustainabledevelopments and establishes challenges to offer techno-logical, scientific and social tools to fulfil these goals.Shortly after the Rio Declaration, Anastas and Warnerpresented 12 Principles of Green Chemistry [2] but morea decade before Trevor Kletz in his Jubilee lecture entitled“What you don’t have, can’t leak” [3] draw the frames inwhich scientific and industrial work should be performed.This basis of green chemistry created a fundament for fur-ther development and implementation of Anastas andWarner principles of green chemistry. One of these framesis integration of green chemistry principles in the biore-finery concept. Among the several definitions of biore-finery, the most widely used and recently accomplished byInternational Energy Agency (IEA) Bioenergy Task 42 is“Biorefining is the sustainable processing of biomass intoa spectrum of marketable products and energy”. Thebiorefinery is an industrial facility (or network of facilities)that cover an extensive range of combined technologiesaiming to full sustainable transformation of biomass intotheir building blocks with the concomitant production ofbiofuels, energy, chemicals and materials, preferably of* Correspondence: rafal.lukasik@lneg.ptLaboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia, Unidade de Bioenergia,1649-038, Lisboa, Portugal© 2013 Morais and Bogel-Lukasik; licensee Chthe Creative Commons Attribution License (hdistribution, and reproduction in any mediumadded-value [4]. The biorefinery concept embraces awhole crop approach of biomass conversion pathwaysleading to a whole portfolio of valuable products, drawingdirect similarities to today’s fossil oil refineries, in whichmultiple fuels, basic chemicals, intermediate products andsophisticated products are produced from petroleum [5,6].To accomplish these needs science developed many lessenergy-requiring and less waste-generation technologies.However, still need of a new investment requirements anda perceived high risk of adoption of new technologies areslowing down the implementation of new processes. Thesolution of this problem is the development of more sus-tainable technologies that significantly increase the re-source efficiency of chemical processes and reduce theoperation time of such technologies. In addition, thesenew technologies should be accomplished in chemical in-dustries by the introduction of chemical processes that donot produce contaminants, but only non-toxic commod-ities and recyclable or easily degradable materials. Indus-tries should be based on ideal processes that start fromnon-polluting starting materials, lead to no secondary orconcomitant products and require no solvents in order tocarry out any chemical conversion or to isolate and purifythe product. Such intrinsically clean processes seem stillhardly attainable at present. But it is expected from the in-genuity and resourcefulness of chemists that the chemicalindustry replaces many existing processes with new tech-nologies aiming at a zero environmental footprint. This isimportant for fine and pharmaceutical industries whichuse energy [7] and generate a significant amount of chem-ical waste. However it is probably even more importantfor large chemical industries which a few minutes carbonfootprint equals a yearly carbon footprint of pharmaemistry Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms ofttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use,, provided the original work is properly cited.Morais and Bogel-Lukasik Sustainable Chemical Processes 2013, 1:18 Page 2 of 3http://www.sustainablechemicalprocesses.com/content/1/1/18enterprise [8]. The waste and energy problems must besolved in the near future because the waste generationand energy consumption are increasing strongly due togrowth of the world population and increasing standardsof living in emerging economies [9].Europe will need to ensure sufficient and sustainablyproduced supplies of raw materials, energy and indus-trial products, under conditions of decreasing fossil car-bon resources while maintaining its competitiveness.Bio-waste (estimated at up to 138 million tonnes peryear in the Union, of which up to 40% is land-filled) rep-resents a huge environmental problem and cost, despitedemonstrating its great potential. Major changes areneeded to reduce this amount by 50% in the Union by2030 [10]. The way to solve this is to boost sustainablebioproducts, intermediates and bioenergy/biofuels, pre-dominantly focussing on a cascade approach, prioritisingthe generation of high added-value products in thebiorefinery concept [11]. Enhancing the range of types ofbiomass for use in second and third generationbiorefineries, including forestry, biowaste and industrialby-products [12]. This will guide to new economy mak-ing society in the larger extend independent on fossil re-sources. The knowledge based bioeconomy includesexcellence in science, technology and industry to deliverinnovation, world leadership in food technologies andproducts and animal breeding technologies, and havinga strong chemical and manufacturing industry base. Thesynergy between all these factors is strongly requiredand should be structured on the key word knowledgebased. The stimulation for these collaborations are largeR&D&D projects The European Commission has fundedseveral projects under last two framework programmesand in the near future continuous support is foreseen inthe frame of HORIZON 2020. The strong mutual inter-actions between industry and academia started to givebenefits and increasing number of biorefinery orientedresearch programmes are made. Among the largest pro-jects supported from national and European funds areBiomass Energy Europe, Sustoil, Star-COLIBRI, Biocore,EuroBioRef and so on. These projects tackle very wideaspects of biorefinery industry and trying to overcomethe technological and legislative bottlenecks. The majorsocial barriers to be still overwhelmed are: i) the pres-sure on water, ii) the social and demographic progressand its impact on industry sectors, iii) the climatechanges, iv) the alterations in lifestyles and eating habits,v) the demand for safer and healthy food, vi) the needsto stop the continuously increase demand on food andfuel, vii) the control and prevention of diseases develop-ment. These are only some social awareness which in ashort term will require concrete responses. Thereforemore active work in this field is strongly desired and itcan be achieved by the integration of policy for theknowledge based bioeconomy, research and innovation,more effective integration of various life sectors, industryand academia, broad communication and educationprogrammes to dispel the myths about the negative im-pact of chemistry on our life and about the real challengesfor society and support for low carbon footprint eitherfood or energy directed processes. Biorefineries might andshould play a vital role in solving some of these hot prob-lems. By working together synthetic biologists, engineersand green chemists can undoubtedly help boost the casefor bio-based technologies by seeing wastes as not a prob-lem but as an opportunity for new product.Although the implementation of the biorefinery conceptin the chemical industry is on-going process still the in-dustrial biorefineries are rare examples. Nevertheless thedevelopment of biorefineries in Europe, USA and Brazilshows the positive trend that can be copied and spread invarious industry sectors around the world. A sugar canemills are at the present moment a modest biorefinery pro-ducing few products such as sugar, ethanol and valueadded products such as polyhydroxybutyrate [13]. It isforeseen that in the near future this industry can expandits production using several renewable feedstock’s to pro-duce biofuels and high value biobased chemicals. Otherknown examples of currently running biorefineries ortheir prototypes are pulp industries such as Lenzing AG(Austria), Portucel Soporcel (Portugal), Zellstoff Stendal(Germany) or companies using agriculture residues asINBICON (Denmark), Ensyn (Canada), Cristal Union(France) or DuPont (USA) to produce energy productsand value added commodities. The continued develop-ment of these and other biorefineries will lead to a greatervariety of feedstocks, technologies and co-products andwill add value to the sustainable use of biomass, maxi-mises biomass conversion efficiency minimising raw ma-terial requirements, produces a spectrum of bio-basedproducts and bioenergy and will make a significant contri-bution to sustainable development, challenging national,European and global policy goals for strengthening of theeconomic position of various market sectors [14].The employment of green chemistry principles men-tioned above into the biorefineries can make a significantcontribution to sustainable development by adding valueto the sustainable use of biomass. A wide spectrum ofbio-based products and bioenergy can be obtained feedingthe full bio-based economy constructed on multi-disciplinarypartnerships to foster necessary R&D&D direction havingas a key point principles of green chemistry.Competing interestThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.Authors’ contributionBoth authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript. Both authors readand approved the final manuscript.Morais and Bogel-Lukasik Sustainable Chemical Processes 2013, 1:18 Page 3 of 3http://www.sustainablechemicalprocesses.com/content/1/1/18AcknowledgementsAuthors gratefully acknowledge funding under COST TD1203 Action.Received: 11 July 2013 Accepted: 10 September 2013Published: 23 September 2013References1. United Nations: Rio declaration on environment and development. Rio deJaneiro, Brazil: United Nations; 1992.2. Anastas PT, Warner JC: Green chemistry: theory and practice. New York:Oxford University Press; 1998.3. Kletz T: What you don’t have, can’t leak. Chem Ind 1978:287–292.4. The Ibero-American Society for the Development of Biorefineries. www.siadeb.org.5. Fernando S, Adhikari S, Chandrapal C, Murali N: Biorefineries: currentstatus, challenges, and future direction. Energy Fuel 2006, 20:1727–1737.6. Cherubini F: The biorefinery concept: using biomass instead of oil forproducing energy and chemicals. Energy Convers Manag 2010,51:1412–1421.7. Worcell E, Phylipsen D, Einstein D, Martin N: Energy Use and energy intensityof the US chemical industry. Berkley, USA: University of Berkley; 2000.8. Wasserscheid P: Foresight lecture. In 6th International Conference on Greenand Sustainable Chemistry; 7 August 2013. Nottingham; 2013.9. Energy Information Administration: International energy outlook 2004.Washington, DC, USA: US Department of Energy; 2004.10. European Commission: HORIZON2020 - Proposal for a council decisionestablishing the specific programme implementing horizon 2020-theframework programme for research & innovation (2014–2020). part III - societalchallenges. Brussels; 2013.11. Bozell JJ, Petersen GR: Technology development for the production ofbiobased products from biorefinery carbohydrates-the US department ofEnergy’s “Top 10” revisited. Green Chem 2010, 12:539–554.12. Luque R, Clark JH: Valorisation of food residues: waste to wealth usinggreen chemistry technologies. Sustainable Chemical Processes 2013, 1:10.13. Rodrigues JAR: Do engenho à biorrefinaria: a usina de açúcar comoempreendimento industrial para a geração de produtos bioquímicos ebiocombustíveis. Quim Nova 2011, 34:1242–1254.14. de Jong E: Biorefineries: adding value to the sustainable utilisation ofbiomass. International Energy Agency 2009, T42:2009:01:1–16.doi:10.1186/2043-7129-1-18Cite this article as: Morais and Bogel-Lukasik: Green chemistry and thebiorefinery concept. Sustainable Chemical Processes 2013 1:18.Open access provides opportunities to our colleagues in other parts of the globe, by allowing anyone to view the content free of charge.Publish with ChemistryCentral and everyscientist can read your work free of chargeW. Jeffery Hurst, The Hershey Company.available free of charge to the entire scientific communitypeer reviewed and published immediately upon acceptancecited in PubMed and archived on PubMed Centralyours     you keep the copyrightSubmit your manuscript here:http://www.chemistrycentral.com/manuscript/

Green chemistry and the biorefinery concept

Morais, Ana Rita

Bogel-Lukasik, R.

Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia Repository

Ana RC Morais

Rafal Bogel-Lukasik

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Green chemistry and the biorefinery concept

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