Basis of Environmental Chemistry for Biomass

Abstract

Chemical elements are renewed in the environment, being removed and returned to nature continuously by means biological, chemical and geological processes, constituting the biogeochemical cycles. The carbon footprint, a derived application of this cycle, became a strategy to understand and to reduce the generation of CO2 from agroindustrial activities—considering that it is a greenhouse gas. Organic matter originates from the decomposition of residues from plant biomass and animal remains that, through chemical, physical and biological processes, undergo structural modification giving rise to a series of organic compounds, whose main representatives are humic substances. On the other hand, environmental issues can be generated from biomass production and processing as greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution. Then, this Chapter presents concepts of environmental chemistry applied to the context of biomass processing (Parts of this chapter were reproduced with permission from: Vaz Jr. (2019) Scenarios, Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Agricultural Chemistry. ISSN 2177-4439, Embrapa Agroenergia, Brasilia. Copyright information: 2019, Embrapa Agroenergia, Parts of this chapter were reproduced with permission from: Vaz Jr. (2018) Analytical Chemistry Applied to Emerging Pollutants. Springer Nature, Cham. Copyright information: 2018, Springer Nature,, Parts of this chapter were reproduced with permission from: Vaz Jr. (Ed) (2019) Sustainable Agrochemistry—A Compendium of Technologies. Springer Nature, Cham. Copyright information: 2019, Springer Nature).