A strategy for the selection of promising value-added products from forest and agricultural resources in the Northeastern Argentinian Region (NEA)

RIVALDI JOHANA; VALLEJOS MARIA; CLAUSER NICOLAS

Simposio; WCCE11 - 11th World Congress of Chemical Engineering, V International Symposium on Lignocellulosic Materials - ISLCM 2023; 2023

Forest and agricultural resources are key players in the economy of the NEA region. Several byproducts are generatedin their conversion through an industrial process, and valorization is becoming important in the current bioeconomy. Inthis sense, biorefinery processes are an attractive alternative to produce value-added products improving the currentproduction chains, using biomass locally available. This biomass is mainly composed of cellulose, hemicelluloses, andlignin, and these fractions could be used to obtain several products. To develop a platform to produce value-addedproducts, it is necessary the assessment of factors like feedstock availability and the products that could be obtained.In this context, the selection of promising products is a key factor for the successful development of a production process.This study aims to present an advance about attractive products that could be obtained for the different biomass fractionsin the NEA Region. For this purpose, a literature review of biorefinery processes was carried out, and a hierarchicalanalysis process (HAP) was used. HAP is a support tool for making multi-criteria decisions that could be used todetermine the order of importance of some variables based on different factors.Based on an updated literature review and previous studies carried out by our investigation group (PROCyP), severalproducts from hemicellulose fraction were selected (see Figure 1). These products were evaluated based on factors liketechnical factors, including labor number, energy consumption, and process operation; market factors, including marketprices, market volume, and market forecast; and raw material, considering the biomass composition and its availability.Based on the preliminary results, furfural, xylitol, levulinic acid, succinic acid, acetic acid, and lactic acid could bepromising options, and depending on the factors evaluated, the most promising products could vary. Besides, based onthe current assessment, it was found that all products have an attractive market trend, the regional biomass availableis promising, and most of the processes are commonly energy intensive. Finally, the next steps of the study will includenew factors like environmental and economic factors, among others, and then determine a global ranking of theevaluated products.