The course will give an overview of an emerging industry aiming at better utilisation of biomass into both a broader spectrum of new chemicals, materials and composites as well as more efficient energy use and production of energy carriers. Focus is on the forest related sector but it also has some relevance for the agro sector since many of the conversion processes are similar and can even be technically integrated or linked. “Biorefinery” is an increasingly popular concept in the Climate Change debate, being used for a variety of industrial processes or combinates – existing or future – from rather traditional multi-product “combinates” for pulp & paper, sawn wood products, electricity, district heating, pellets, possibly combined with lignin extraction or gasification, ethanol fermentation and biogas production from rest products or – similarly – agro-combinates for ethanol, biogas, feed stuffs and soil improvers. These are then downstream followed or even integrated with chemical process industries or refineries.
The course will give an overview of:
- The biorefinery concept
- Different types of “biorefineries”
- On-going and planned commercial as well as R&D- and pilot-/demo projects
- Green Chemical Technologies
- The thermo-chemical and the bio-chemical routes to basic feed stocks for synthesis
- Fractionation and extractions of lignocellulosic components(cellulose, nano-celluloses, hemicelluloses, lignin components, extractives etc)
- Different conversion processes
- Potential new products; biomaterials, chemicals, composites
- Process integration opportunities, energy saving opportunities and strategies
- Product, material and energy yields and efficiencies on different system levels
- Technical, economical, environmental and political driving forces
- The course is a post-gradual course, also open for undergraduate students.
The course is, however, aimed at university and industry researchers and personnel who are interested in technology development. The course language will be English.
