Institut für Abwasserwirtschaft und Gewässerschutz

The Europe 2020 strategy calls for bioeconomy as the key for smart and green growth of today. Biorefineries are the fundamental part on the way to convert the use of fossil-based society to bio-based society. For this reason, agriculture and forestry sectors are increasingly deliver bioresources. It is not only for their traditional applications in the food and feed sectors such as pulp or paper and construction material productions, but also to produce bioenergy and bio-based products such as bio-plastics. However although bioresources are renewable, they are considered as limited resources as well. The bioeconomy’s limitation factor is the availability land on our world. In the context of the development of the bioeconomy, the sustainable and reliable supply of noon-food biomass feedstock is a critical success factor for the long-term perspective of bioenergy and other bio-based products production. Biorefineries are complex of technologies and process cascades using the available primary, secondary and tertiary bioresources to produce a multitude of products - a product mix from material and energy products.

The lecture gives an overview on biorefinery technology and shall contribute to promotion of international biorefinery developments.

Lectures:

• What is a biorefinery: Overview on basic organic substrates and processes which lead to material and energy products
• The way from a fossil based to a biobased economy in the 21st century
• The worlds most advanced biorefinery
• Presentation of various biorefinery systems and their products (e.g. lignocellulose biorefinery, green biorefinery, whole plant biorefinery, civilization biorefinery)
• Example projects (e.g. combination of anaerobic digestion and composting in practice; demonstration project in Hamburgs city quarter Jenfelder Au)

The lectures will be accompanied by technical tours. Optional it is also possible to visit more biorefinery lectures in the University of Hamburg (lectures in German only).

In the exercise students have the possibility to work in groups on a biorefinery project or to work on a student-specific task.