Overview of Biorefinery Technology

Biorefinery involves integrated systems or routes/pathways for converting biomass into different targeted valuable products such as energy, fuels, and chemicals by various physical, chemical, thermochemical, and biochemical technologies. It has recently gained increasing attention owing to its relevance. International Energy Agency Bioenergy Task 42 defined biorefinery as “the sustainable processing of biomass into a range of biobased products (chemicals, feed, food, or other useful products) and bioenergy (power, biofuels, and/or heat),” with the aim to optimize the full utilization of biomass, maximize its profitability, and concurrently minimize waste generation. An overview of the technologies/possible routes of algal biomass biorefinery for enhanced biomass utilization, most especially for production of several industrially important phycochemicals and bioenergy, has been provided in this chapter. Besides, the chapter also presented the general concept of biorefinery and the summary of the challenges, opportunities, and recent trends in algal biomass biorefinery.