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The slow progress in the commercialization of lignocellulosic biorefineries involving the biochemical conversion pathway points at the immaturity of existing biorefinery concepts. The current research suggests a systematic analysis of value creation chains and their economic and environmental hotspots within a multi-product biorefinery, having as the primary goal to promote sustainable biorefining processes. A lignocellulosic biorefinery producing ethanol, crude lignin oil and electricity was analyzed. Our methodology involves the transformation of a technological biorefinery model into the input-output one and the use of matrix notation to track the accumulation of economic and environmental attributes along biorefinery value chains. Three categories of indicators are chosen to reveal the most critical processing stages of every value chain, namely: (i) monetary and environmental profiles, (ii) the role of feedstock and (iii) infrastructure required to support main processes. Principal biorefinery hotspots refer to the biomass pretreatment, solids recovery and lignin drying stages, which is due mainly to wastewater treatment accompanying these processes. The other hotspot, lignin solvolysis technology, shows the environmental advantage of decreasing methanol content in the produced lignin oil. The proposed method is worth being applied to the analysis of new biorefinery concepts and new integration pathways.

This paper presents systematic analysis of value creation chains and their economic and environmental hotspots within a multi-product biorefinery with the primary goal to promote sustainable biorefining. Lignocellulosic biorefinery producing ethanol, crude lignin oil (CLO) and electricity was analysed. The methodology involves transformation of technological model into an input-output one with the use of matrix notation for the analysis of economic and environmental attributes along value chains. The results show that the accumulation of biomass through energy supply grows by a factor of 1.2 for ethanol and electricity, and by 1.4 for CLO value chains, of which solid recovery, lignin solvolysis and biomass pretreatment are responsible for the most significant growth indicating the necessity for energy optimization of those steps. The analysis reveals a superfluous role of infrastructure in pretreatment and lignin drying processes. Of infrastructural costs related to the equipment required for the pretreatment step, wastewater treatment (WWT) facility is responsible for 58%, and of the costs of lignin drying, the combined heat and power plant is responsible for 56%. WWT determines 75% of infrastructural GHG emissions attributable to pretreatment, and 57% of those related to lignin drying. This points at an advantage of a biorefinery concept involving the removal of lignin fraction before the valorization of carbohydrates. Another hotspot, the lignin solvolysis technology, shows environmental and economic advantages of its further optimization in terms of production costs and GHG emissions. The proposed method is helpful for analyzing economic and environmental hotspots in new biorefinery concepts and integration pathways.

The slow progress in the commercialization of lignocellulosic biorefineries involving the biochemical conversion pathway points at the immaturity of existing biorefinery concepts. The current research suggests a systematic analysis of value creation chains and their economic and environmental hotspots within a multi-product biorefinery, having as the primary goal to promote sustainable biorefining processes. A lignocellulosic biorefinery producing ethanol, crude lignin oil and electricity was analyzed. Our methodology involves the transformation of a technological biorefinery model into the input-output one and the use of matrix notation to track the accumulation of economic and environmental attributes along biorefinery value chains. Three categories of indicators are chosen to reveal the most critical processing stages of every value chain, namely: (i) monetary and environmental profiles, (ii) the role of feedstock and (iii) infrastructure required to support main processes. Principal biorefinery hotspots refer to the biomass pretreatment, solids recovery and lignin drying stages, which is due mainly to wastewater treatment accompanying these processes. The other hotspot, lignin solvolysis technology, shows the environmental advantage of decreasing methanol content in the produced lignin oil. The proposed method is worth being applied to the analysis of new biorefinery concepts and new integration pathways.

The slow progress in the commercialization of lignocellulosic biorefineries involving the biochemical conversion pathway points at the immaturity of existing biorefinery concepts. The current research suggests a systematic analysis of value creation chains and their economic and environmental hotspots within a multi-product biorefinery, having as the primary goal to promote sustainable biorefining processes. A lignocellulosic biorefinery producing ethanol, crude lignin oil and electricity was analyzed. Our methodology involves the transformation of a technological biorefinery model into the input-output one and the use of matrix notation to track the accumulation of economic and environmental attributes along biorefinery value chains. Three categories of indicators are chosen to reveal the most critical processing stages of every value chain, namely: (i) monetary and environmental profiles, (ii) the role of feedstock and (iii) infrastructure required to support main processes. Principal biorefinery hotspots refer to the biomass pretreatment, solids recovery and lignin drying stages, which is due mainly to wastewater treatment accompanying these processes. The other hotspot, lignin solvolysis technology, shows the environmental advantage of decreasing methanol content in the produced lignin oil. The proposed method is worth being applied to the analysis of new biorefinery concepts and new integration pathways.

The slow progress in the commercialization of lignocellulosic biorefineries involving the biochemical conversion pathway points at the immaturity of existing biorefinery concepts. The current research suggests a systematic analysis of value creation chains and their economic and environmental hotspots within a multi-product biorefinery, having as the primary goal to promote sustainable biorefining processes. A lignocellulosic biorefinery producing ethanol, crude lignin oil and electricity was analyzed. Our methodology involves the transformation of a technological biorefinery model into the input-output one and the use of matrix notation to track the accumulation of economic and environmental attributes along biorefinery value chains. Three categories of indicators are chosen to reveal the most critical processing stages of every value chain, namely: (i) monetary and environmental profiles, (ii) the role of feedstock and (iii) infrastructure required to support main processes. Principal biorefinery hotspots refer to the biomass pretreatment, solids recovery and lignin drying stages, which is due mainly to wastewater treatment accompanying these processes. The other hotspot, lignin solvolysis technology, shows the environmental advantage of decreasing methanol content in the produced lignin oil. The proposed method is worth being applied to the analysis of new biorefinery concepts and new integration pathways.