Integration of Biorefinery Clusters Towards Zero Emissions

Depletion of world recourses, increasing pollution, and climate change make us shift from linear economy to system economyan economy of technologies integrated to reach a non-polluting zero emissions production system.Transition to renewable resources requires replacement the present crude oil refinery by biomass refinery.Along with conventional biomass refinery technologies bioengineering and nano-technologies become significant players of systems in the design of clusters of integrated biorefinery technologies.The authors consider a number of case-studies of biomass conversion into value-added chemicals and sources of energy, the steam explosion autohydrolysis (SEA) in particular.Modelling of the SEA processes is represented by a preliminary analysis of energy flows.The eMergy (energy memory) approach is applied to assess environmental impacts and sustainability.