Using product driven process synthesis in the biorefinery

The complexities of decision-making in food waste valorization: A critical review

The efficient utilization of food waste (FW) resources through Food Waste Valorization (FWV) has received increasing attention in recent years. Various decision-making studies have been undertaken to facilitate FWV implementation, such as the studies on decision-making framework and FWV technology assessment. Food waste hierarchy is a widely discussed framework in FW management, but it was found too simplified and does not always contribute positively to environmental sustainability. Moreover, decision-making studies in FWV often focus on specific aspects of the food system and employ distinctive decision-making approaches, making it difficult to compare the results from different studies. Therefore, our literature review is conducted to provide a comprehensive understanding of FWV decision-making. This study identifies what decisions are needed, and three levels of decisions are revealed: system-level, FW stream-level, and FWV option-level. The assessment approaches and criteria used to support decision-making in FWV are also collected and analyzed. Building upon these findings, an hourglass model is synthesized to provide a holistic illustration of decision-making in FWV. This study untangles the complexities of FWV decision-making and sheds light on the limitations of current studies. We anticipate this study will make more people realize that FWV is a multidisciplinary issue and requires the collective participation of researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and consumers. Such collective engagement is essential to effectively address practical challenges and propel the transition of the current food system toward a more resource-efficient paradigm.

Process Analysis of Hydrogen Production via Biomass Gasification under Computer-Aided Safety and Environmental Assessments

The growing awareness to advance new ways to transform renewable materials for producing clean fuels, under technical and sustainable viability, is evident. In this regard, hydrogen arises as one of the cleanest and energetic biofuels in the market. This work addresses the modeling and evaluation of a biomass gasification topology employing process simulation along with an environmental and inherent safety analysis. The presented pathway considered two renewable raw materials (cassava and rice waste) based on their vast availability in north Colombia regions. We employed Aspen Plus process simulation software to model the process, setting biomasses (and ash content) as nonconventional solids in the software and inclusion of FORTRAN subroutines for handling solid properties. Otherwise, the environmental evaluation was performed applying the waste reduction algorithm (WAR). At the same time, safety assessment involves a comprehensive approach based on the inherent safety index (ISI) and the process route index (PRI) methods. Data generated from the implementation of rigorous process simulation of biomass gasification allowed us to determine the needed aspect for performing process analysis methodologies. Results revealed that this topology generates a total flow of 3944.51 kg/h with more than 97% vol of H₂, from the sustainable use of 19,243 kg/h of cassava waste and 15,000 kg/h of rice straw. From the environmental viewpoint, the process showed moderately to a high overall rate of potential environmental impacts (PEIs), with a higher contribution from process sources than energy sources. It indicates that most of the generated impacts would come from self-operation than from the energy supply generation. In the case of process safety, the topology obtained an ISI score of 35, which represents that modeled gasification would operate below 50% of the expected neutral standard for a physical-chemical process. Complementing the safety evaluation, the obtained PRI suggests that compared to other processes, the analyzed topology shows relatively adequate performance considering the nature of this type of process.

Techno-Functional Properties of Crude Extracts from the Green Microalga Tetraselmis suecica

A mild fractionation process to extract functional biomolecules from green microalgae was implemented. The process includes bead milling, centrifugation, and filtration with several membrane cut-offs. For each fraction, the corresponding composition was measured, and the surface activity and gelation behavior were determined. A maximum protein yield of 12% was obtained in the supernatant after bead milling and between 3.2 and 11.7% after filtration. Compared to whey protein isolate, most of the algae fractions exhibited comparable or enhanced functionality. Surface activity for air-water and oil-water interfaces and gelation activities were notably superior for the retentate fractions compared to the permeates. It is proposed that such functionality in the retentates is due to the presence of hydrophobic compounds and molecular complexes exhibiting a similar behavior as Pickering particles. We demonstrated that excellent functionality can be obtained with crude fractions, requiring minimum processing and, thus, constituting an interesting option for commercial applications.

Simultaneous production of proteases and antioxidant compounds from agro-industrial by-products

The use of processes for simultaneous production of bioproducts as enzymes and bioactive compounds is an interesting alternative to reduce environmental impacts. Thus, the aim of this study was to produce simultaneously, using the biorefinery concept, both proteases and bioactive compounds with antioxidant activity from Bacillus sp. P45 cultivation by using different by-products. The integrated process developed in this study enabled to obtain enzymes with proteolytic and keratinolytic properties in a process with alternate substrates from agro-industrial by-products (feather meal, residual feather meal and biomass), thus, creating an interesting alternative to managing them. The residual biomass provided the highest protease activity (1306.6U/mL) and the reused feather meal reached the highest keratinolytic activity (89U/mL), both at 32h of cultivation. Moreover, hydrolysates produced in cultivation using feather meal and residual biomass had high antioxidant activity, they have great potential as natural antioxidants.