Bioproducts or bio-based products are

material Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geologi ...

chemicals A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wit ...

and

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...

derived from renewable

biological resources In biology and ecology, a resource is a substance or object in the environment required by an organism for normal growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Resources can be consumed by one organism and, as a result, become unavailable to another organi ...

Bioresources

Biological Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary in ...

resources include

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. Th ...

, and biologically-derived

waste Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste prod ...

, and there are many other

renewable A renewable resource, also known as a flow resource, is a natural resource which will replenish to replace the portion depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a finite amount of ti ...

bioresource examples.

Example

One of the examples of renewable bioresources is

lignocellulose Lignocellulose refers to plant dry matter (biomass), so called lignocellulosic biomass. It is the most abundantly available raw material on the Earth for the production of biofuels. It is composed of two kinds of carbohydrate polymers, cellulose a ...

. Lignocellulosic tissues are biologically-derived

natural resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...

containing some of the main constituents of the natural world. # Holocellulose is the carbohydrate fraction of lignocellulose that includes

cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall ...

, a common building block made of sugar (

glucose Glucose is a simple sugar with the molecular formula . Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, using ...

) that is the most abundant biopolymer, as well as

hemicellulose A hemicellulose (also known as polyose) is one of a number of heteropolymer, heteropolymers (matrix polysaccharides), such as arabinoxylans, present along with cellulose in almost all embryophyte, terrestrial plant cell walls.Scheller HV, Ulvskov H ...

. Recent advances in the catalytic conversion of platform chemicals from this biomass fraction have attracted industry and academia alike. #

Lignin Lignin is a class of complex organic polymers that form key structural materials in the support tissues of most plants. Lignins are particularly important in the formation of cell walls, especially in wood and bark, because they lend rigidity ...

is the second most abundant biopolymer. Cellulose and lignin are two of the primary natural polymers used by plants to store energy as well as to give strength, as is the case in woody plant tissues. Other energy storage chemicals in plants include

oils An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

waxes Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to give low ...

fat In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers spec ...

s, etc., and because these other plant compounds have distinct properties, they offer potential for a host of different bioproducts.

Categorization

Conventional bioproducts and emerging bioproducts are two broad categories used to categorize bioproducts. Examples of conventional bio-based products include building materials,

pulp and paper The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process The pulp is fed to a paper machine where it is formed as a paper web an ...

, and

forest products A forest product is any material derived from forestry for direct consumption or commercial use, such as lumber, paper, or fodder for livestock. Wood, by far the dominant product of forests, is used for many purposes, such as wood fuel (e.g. in for ...

. Examples of emerging bioproducts or

biobased product Bioproducts or bio-based products are materials, chemicals and energy derived from renewable biological resources. Bioresources Biological resources include agriculture, forestry, and biologically-derived waste, and there are many other renewable ...

s include

biofuels Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (E ...

bioenergy Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms biom ...

, starch-based and cellulose-based

ethanol Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl ...

, bio-based adhesives, biochemicals,

bioplastic Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, etc. Some bioplastics are obtained by processing directly from natural ...

s, etc. Emerging bioproducts are active subjects of research and development, and these efforts have developed significantly since the turn of the 20/21st century, in part driven by the price of traditional petroleum-based products, by the

environmental impact of petroleum The environmental impact of the petroleum industry is extensive and expansive due to petroleum having many uses. Crude oil and natural gas are primary energy and raw material sources that enable numerous aspects of modern daily life and the worl ...

use, and by an interest in many countries to become independent from foreign sources of oil. Bioproducts derived from bioresources can replace much of the fuels, chemicals, plastics etc. that are currently derived from petroleum

Bioproducts engineering

Bioproducts engineering (also referred to as

bioprocess engineering Bioprocess engineering, also biochemical engineering, is a specialization of chemical engineering or biological engineering. It deals with the design and development of equipment and processes for the manufacturing of products such as agriculture, ...

) refers to engineering of bio-products from renewable bioresources. This pertains to the design, development and implementation of processes, technologies for the sustainable manufacture of materials, chemicals and energy from renewable biological resources.

Alternative definitions

*Bioprocess Engineering is a specialization of Biotechnology, Chemical Engineering or Biological Engineering or of Agricultural Engineering. It deals with the design and development of equipment and processes for the manufacturing of products such as food, feed, pharmaceuticals,

nutraceutical A nutraceutical or bioceutical is a pharmaceutical alternative which claims physiological benefits. In the US, "nutraceuticals" are largely unregulated, as they exist in the same category as dietary supplements and food additives by the FDA, unde ...

s, chemicals, and polymers and paper from biological materials. Bioprocess engineering is a conglomerate of mathematics, biology and industrial design, and consists of various spectrums like designing of Fermentors, study of fermentors (mode of operations etc.). It also deals with studying various biotechnological processes used in industries for large scale production of biological product for optimization of yield in the end product and the quality of end product. Bio process engineering may include the work of mechanical, electrical and industrial engineers to apply principles of their disciplines to processes based on using living cells or sub component of such cells Bioprocess engineering- Basic concepts; Shular, Michael A., kargi, Fikret, Prentice Hall of India,2005 *Bioresource engineering is related to the applications of biological engineering, chemical engineering and agricultural engineering usually based on biological and/or agricultural feedstocks. Bioresource engineering is more general and encompasses a wider range of technologies and various elements such as biomass, biological waste treatment, bioenergy, biotransformations and bioresource systems analysis, and technologies associated with Thermochemical conversion technologies: combustion, pyrolysis, gasification, catalysis, etc. Biochemical conversion technologies: aerobic methods, anaerobic digestion, microbial growth processes, enzymatic methods, composting Products: fibre, fuels, feedstocks, fertilisers, building materials, polymers and other industrial products Management: modelling, systems analysis, decisions, support systems. The impact of urbanization and increasing demand for land, food, and water presents engineers in a world with serious challenges. Little attention has been given to the interface between the biological world and traditional engineering in the past. It is the job of bioresource engineers to fill that gap. Agricultural and bioresource engineers develop efficient and environmentally-sensitive methods of producing food, fiber, timber, bio-based products and renewable energy sources for an ever-increasing world population.

References

External links

USDA BioPreferred Program

the Bioeconomic Revolution in Biobased Products and Bioenergy''
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
''U.S. DOE Biomass Program''
{{Authority control Sustainable agriculture Biotechnology Sustainable business Sustainable forest management