Bio-Refineries: Energy is Everyone

A bio-refinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power and chemicals from biomass. The notion is analogous to today's petroleum installations, which produce a variety of fuels and products from crude oil. By synthesizing multiple products, a single bio refinery can take advantage of the differences in biomass components and intermediates, maximising the value derived from the original feedstock whilst also generating electricity and process heat for internal consumption and export.

Alternative bio-based hydro carbon sources continue to expand as the knowledge of chemical conversion processes has increased, as new technologies have become available, and as environmental constraints on emissions spectra have been enforced. The preceding 25 years has seen an explosive growth in engine technology as the issues of air pollution, fuel cost and terminal crude supplies have become increasingly important.

Bio-refinery installations are built on three diverse platforms to promote specific products or to accommodate particular feed stock materials. The "carbohydrate" platform encircles biochemical conversion processes and focuses on the fermentation of simple or complex sugars extracted from biomass feedstocks. The "bio-gas" platform is allied with biological conversion processes and focuses on the decomposition of biomass feedstocks whilst the "catalytic" platform follows a non-enzymatic pathway using pressurised and thermally activated environments.