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Bioresources contribute to the regulation of environmental qualities, provide energy, food, other materials; deliver cultural values that encompass basic resources for scientific, artistic, and educational inspiration; support esthetical, ethical, and spiritual behavior, as well as foster tranquility, relaxation, leisure, quality of life, and suchlike amenities. Although the consumption of bioresources is usually associated with the uses of materials, the consumption value of the non-material activities in cultural ecosystem services is fast growing in terms of scientific interest and economic development. They refer to spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, leisure and recreation, as well as ethical and esthetic experiences. Herewith, the uses of bioresources for health, tourism, and education are introduced with a focus on urban areas where most people in the world live.

U prezentaciji je prikazano trenutno stanje u području iskorištavanje biomase te potencijal biomase u budućim energetskim sustavima baziranim na visokim udjelima obnobljibih izvora energije

Bioethanol is an important part of possible solutions for the replacement of fossil fuels in the near future. It could be added in the gasolines directly or as the ETBE. In Europe, the probably most convenient renewable raw materials for the bio ethanol production are grains and sugar beet. For this purpose there is a tendency to use predominantly corn and a little be less the wheat. Because of the surplus of sugar production in EU, it is an existing possibility for sugar factories to redirect the sugar beet in the bioethanol instead in the sugar production, respectively. According to available technical equipment and state of the technology today, sugar factories can use some inter-stage products (i.e. sugar juice ≈ 16 % sugar or concentrated sugar syrup 65-67 % sugar) as well as waste materials (molasses > 50 % sugar for the fermentative production of bioethanol. From energetic point of view, the main points of energy consumption in such productions are: sugar extraction from sugar beet chips, sugar juice concentration by evaporation (syrup production), ethanol distillation as well as distillers mash concentration and drying. The ecological foot print of bioethanol production from sugar beet could be significantly improved by introduction of new processes in fermentation techniques, product recovery and by-products processing respectively. Among other possibilities, the introducing of sugar beet chips as the main raw material and simultaneous sugar extraction, fermentation and product recovery process (SSEFPR), combined with biogas production from fermentation residues, could be applied. A using of biogas for the process heat generation or for the combined electricity and steam production is the further advantage in the ecological improvement of sustainability of bioethanol production.

The 21st century inherits stark challenges for human society, which are particularly tough for chemical engineering. While on one hand, chemical engineering is responsible for providing most of the products of daily consumption, the base for modern agriculture as well as energy carriers for power generation, transport, heating and cooling, on the other hand, it has a considerable impact on the environment, via its resource consumption, its emissions and the impact of its products. New (sustainable) alternatives, for example, change of raw material base, use of renewable resources, efficient manufacture of chemical products and sustainable products and processes that can efficiently manufacture them, will need to be considered to meet the current and future challenges. Some of the important issues in this respect are how to generate/identify sustainable alternatives, how to analyze them, which criteria should be used to evaluate them, and how to implement them? The objective of this presentation is to highlight the use of systematic multidisciplinary approaches for generation of sustainable alternatives combined with methods/tools for analysis and evaluation. For generation of alternatives, driving force based methods for product-process synthesis and design, employing green chemistry principles will be discussed. For analysis, application of life cycle assessment techniques will be highlighted. For evaluation, the use of sustainability metrics combined with safety and hazards indicators will be illustrated. Examples in the form of case studies from the energy sector, pharmaceuticals sector and chemicals/food sectors will be used in the illustrations.