Adding value to agri-food residues by means of supercritical technology

Abstract

The demand for resources to supply the world's energy needs has been increasing day by day; agricultural processing wastes and residues generated by the industrial sector could be transformed into energy, mitigating environmental impact. Rising concern about environmental issues has been increasing, which, in turn, presses governments and companies to develop policies and solutions to solve these problems. In this context, the industrial symbiosis aims to reach sustainability by closing productive cycles, where the residues from an industry are the raw material for others. Agri-food residues are important sources of compounds with commercial interest that could be recovered both to decrease the volume of residues generated, and also to improve the economic viability of processes, by producing added value products. For this purpose, several applications of the supercritical technology to add value to agri-food residues through both extraction of high value-added compounds and hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass to produce fermentable sugars are presented.