Bioproducts Extraction from Agro-industrial By-products and Their Valorisation. Development of Process Layouts

Abstract

The agro-food industry generates important quantities of by-products, often considered waste, which represent for the companies huge costs of handling and disposal. On the other hand, they contain copious amounts and varieties of compounds that, appropriately extracted, purified, and processed, can be valued in several industrial sectors. Their exploitation generates an improvement of the sustainability performance of the supply chains, since it generates economic advantages, making available new commercial products and reducing disposal costs, improves the environmental performance of the agro-industrial productions, and allows new employment opportunities, thanks to the development of new industrial sectors. The Percival project aims to valorize the by-products of agro-industrial supply chains of South of Italy, converting them into high-added value products, through innovative, efficient, and low environmental impact processes, going for the development of technologies that could represent new business opportunities for this territory. Particularly, the project deals with the development of processes for pretreatment, extraction, separation, and chemical/biotechnological transformation, using a biorefinery cascade approach. Indeed, the study of processes having the purpose of converting the residues from the above-mentioned transformations into advanced biofuels (biomethane) and agricultural products (e.g. soil improver and bio-stimulants) are also included in the project’s scope. The present paper provides an overview of the Percival project, along with the evaluation of the availability of residual biomasses from the supply chains of typical Southern agricultural products, and the valuable bioproducts achievable from these feedstocks, through a biorefinery processing scheme.