Green Chemistry and the Biorefinery - The Economic Utilisation of Food Co-Products - page 9

proteins and derived products (amino acids, N-chemicals);
other bulk chemicals (e.g. ingredients for coatings);
a range of high-value specialties.

In 2030 several commercial biorefinery concepts for integral microalgae-
based production chains will exist for:

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biofuels and coproducts;
feed for aquaculture, including recycling of nutrients;
production of food or food ingredients and coproducts.

The cultivation of seaweed can be an enormous source of biomass in the
future. Use of land for cultivation of biomass for the production of fuels,
products and fibres is subject to debate due to the competition with food
production. Expansion of biomass cultivation to the sea would increase the
potential amount of biomass being available for nonfood and nonfeed
purposes, and thereby increasing the potential share of biomass in renewable
energy supply in the future.
For aquatic biomass several biorefinery processes seem to fit. Depending on
the type of feedstock (the seaweed species), and the possibilities of process
integration, a processing route will be selected. Hydrothermal upgrading
(HTU), anaerobic digestion to methane, and ethanol fermentation and distil-
lation, are possible processes.

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1.2 Extractable High-Value Chemicals in Food and
Byproducts
Secondary metabolites are extracted from numerous plants and flowers and are
used as pigments, health products, food ingredients and cosmetic applications.
This section focuses on mainly European crops. The biomass has been divided
into seven distinct groups that are cereal, oilseed, root, wood, herbaceous and
marine biomass.
The bulk of secondary metabolites are used in the food, cosmetics and health
industries and good sources of information are available on the internet. For
example, hundreds of secondary metabolites are used in the cosmetics industry
and in the food and health industry.

1.2.1 Cereal Crops
Human society has depended on cereal crops for millennia and today there are
thousands of products based on wheat, barley, oats and rice. Although much of
the focus is on the grain for food purposes, there are very important meta-
bolites that are not used in the growth of the plant, however when extracted,
they have many uses in various applications. Applications exist in the cosmetics
industry where extracts are used in products such as hair conditioner, shampoo,