Bioproducts or bio-based products are

material A material is a matter, substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an Physical object, object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical property, physical ...

chemicals A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...

and

energy Energy () is the physical quantity, quantitative physical property, property that is transferred to a physical body, body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of Work (thermodynamics), work and in the form of heat and l ...

derived from renewable biological material.

Bioresources

Biological Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of ...

resources include

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

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

, and biologically derived

waste Waste 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 Value (economics), economic value. A wast ...

, and there are many other renewable 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 Biofuel, biofuels. It is composed of two kinds of carbohydrate polymers, c ...

. 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. ...

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 chemical formula, formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of glycosidic bond, β(1→4) linked glucose, D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important s ...

, a common building block made of sugar (

glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula , which is often abbreviated as Glc. It is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. It is mainly made by plants and most algae d ...

) that is the most abundant biopolymer, as well as

hemicellulose A hemicellulose (also known as polyose) is one of a number of heteropolymers (matrix polysaccharides), such as arabinoxylans, present along with cellulose in almost all embryophyte, terrestrial plant cell walls. Cellulose is crystalline, strong, an ...

. 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 rigidit ...

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) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturat ...

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 specif ...

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, specifically pulpwood, as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard, and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process In the manufacturing process, pulp is introd ...

, 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 fo ...

. Examples of emerging bioproducts or biobased products 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. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricultural, domestic ...

bioenergy Bioenergy is a type of renewable energy that is derived from plants and animal waste. The Biomass (energy), biomass that is used as input materials consists of recently living (but now dead) organisms, mainly plants. Thus, Fossil fuel, fossil fu ...

, starch-based and cellulose-based

ethanol Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...

, bio-based adhesives, biochemicals,

bioplastic Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources. Timeline of plastic development, Historically, bioplastics made from natural materials like shellac or Celluloid, cellulose had been the first plastics. Since the end of ...

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 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 A bioprocess is a specific process that uses complete living cells or their components (e.g., bacteria, enzymes, chloroplasts) to obtain desired products. Transport of energy and mass is fundamental to many biological and environmental processes ...

) 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 Nutraceutical is a terminology evolved scientifically & also through marketing which is used to imply a pharmaceutical effect from plant extracts, compounds, food products which have efficacy and therapeutic influence on clinical outcomes and patien ...

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