Invited Talk: Integrated Biorefinery Strategies for Waste and Biomass Valorisation

There is a growing demand to establish biotechnology-based processes for chemicals, materials and fuels production which can decrease our dependency on dwindling oil reserves and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These novel bioprocesses are incorporated into biorefineries, which are integral units converting different renewable-derived feedstocks into a range of useful products as diverse as those from petroleum using environmentally friendly technologies [1-2]. A number of agricultural-based biorefinery processes have been developed and realised at commercial scale since the past decade. At the same time, there are growing concerns over organic waste generation and insufficient resource supply due to the ever-increasing global population and the cradle-to-grave system of material flows in the linear economy.

Therefore, the research in our team aims at valorisation of organic waste materials through bioconversion processes to recover their inherent nutrients for transformation into value-added products. Waste-based biorefinery not only provides a mean for waste treatment, but also promotes the development of a circular economy by valorisation of wastes into value-added products [3]. In this talk, we aim to provide an overview of recent efforts from our group in leading the future of global researchers. The first part of the talk will cover several projects which serve as examples to demonstrate the recent development of integrated biorefinery strategies for valorisation of food and textile wastes. Due to the different characteristics of the waste materials, the bio-processes were specifically designed and demonstrated in both laboratory and pilot-scales, accompanied with techno-economic assessment for evaluation of technical and economic feasibility.