Cheap and abundant waste from bioethanol and agricultural processing industries are an alluring alternative feedstock for biorefineries. In this work, we employ reductive catalytic fractionation (RCF) to depolymerize, over Ru/C...

Chemocatalytic lignin valorization strategies are critical for a sustainable bioeconomy, as lignin, especially technical lignin, is one of the most available and underutilized aromatic feedstocks. Here, we provide the first report of an intensified reactive distillation–reductive catalytic deconstruction (RD-RCD) process to concurrently deconstruct technical lignins from diverse sources and purify the aromatic products at ambient pressure. We demonstrate the utility of RD-RCD bio-oils in high-performance additive manufacturing via stereolithography 3D printing and highlight its economic advantages over a conventional reductive catalytic fractionation/RCD process. As an example, our RD-RCD reduces the cost of producing a biobased pressure-sensitive adhesive from softwood Kraft lignin by up to 60% in comparison to the high-pressure RCD approach. Last, a facile screening method was developed to predict deconstruction yields using easy-to-obtain thermal decomposition data. This work presents an integrated lignin valorization approach for upgrading existing lignin streams toward the realization of economically viable biorefineries.

Globally, 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted annually, with few uses other than landfilling, anaerobic digestion, or composting. Food waste (FW) repurposing provides an alternative waste management strategy toward meeting goal 12 of the United Nations sustainable development goals. Here, we present an integrated biorefinery technology, repurposing potato peel waste (PPW) for manufacturing multiple biobased value-added products.We report an integrated biorefinery comprising three stepwise processes: ultrasonic extraction to recover extractives for high activity antioxidants' production, optimized hydrolysis and dehydration of glucose resulting in the highest reported yields (54%) of 5hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), directly from potato peels, for manufacturing biobased chemical precursors, and finally, pyrolysis of the residual lignin into biochar for remediating pesticide contaminated water, improving water quality. As a best-case scenario, we obtain revenues of about $6300 per MT of dry PPW. This provides the opportunity for successful translation of our technology to an economically profitable process using zero value food waste. This study provides a sustainable valorization blueprint that can be extended to other types of FW for improving the economics of biomass-based biorefineries by manufacturing multiple renewable products.