Research into renewable bioresources at York and elsewhere is demonstrating that by applying green chemical technologies to the transformation of typically low value and widely available biomass feedstocks, including wastes, we can build up new environmentally compatible and sustainable chemicals and materials industries for the 21st century. Current research includes the benign extraction of valuable secondary metabolites from agricultural co-products and other low value biomass, the conversion of nature's primary metabolites into speciality materials and into bioplatform molecules, as well as the green chemical transformations of those platform molecules. Key drivers for the adoption of biorefinery technologies will come from all stages in the chemical product lifecycle (reducing the use of non-renewable fossil resources, cleaner and safer chemical manufacturing, and legislative and consumer requirements for products), but also from the renewable energy industries (adding value to biofuels through the utilisation of the chemical value of by-products) and the food industries (realising the potential chemical value of wastes at all stages in the food product lifecycle).

The use of biorefineries for the production of chemicals as well as materials and energy products is key to ensuring a sustainable future for the chemical and allied industries. Through the integration of green chemistry into biorefineries, and the use of low environmental impact technologies, we can establish future supply chains for genuinely green and sustainable chemical products. The first step in these future biorefineries should be the benign extraction of surface chemicals; here the use of greener solvents, such as supercritical carbon dioxide and bioethanol, should be considered. The residues will often be rich in lignocellulosics and the effective separation of the cellulose is a major challenge which may, in the future, be assisted by greener solvents, such as ionic liquids. Lignin is nature's major source of aromatics; we need new ways to produce small aromatic building blocks from lignin in order to satisfy the enormous and diverse industrial demand for aromatics. Fermentation can be used to convert biomass into a wide range of bioplatform chemicals in addition to ethanol. Their green chemical conversion to higher value chemicals is as important as their efficient production; here clean technologies such as catalysis – notably biocatalysis and heterogeneous catalysis – the use of benign solvents, and energy efficient reactors are essential. Thermochemical processes for the conversion of biomass, such as the production of pyrolysis oil, will also play an important role in future biorefineries and here again green chemistry methods should be used to go to higher value downstream chemicals. Published in 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Liquid and supercritical CO 2 have been used for the first time to achieve direct isolation of valuable wax products from wheat straw (

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