The production of bioenergy and new products from waste is a challenge and a necessity, especially for the industrial sector. In the state of São Paulo alone, more than 2 million tons of organic solid waste are produced per year. The food industry produces the most solid waste in its production line and many technologies have been developed with the purpose of treating this waste. Attentive to current needs, Tania Forster Carneiro, professor at Unicamp's Faculty of Food Engineering (FEA), is developing a new line of research obtaining promising results.
“The technology we developed allows us to transform a large volume of waste into a liquid with high added value that can be transported and/or packaged more easily”, says the researcher, enthusiastically.
Head of the Bioengineering and Water and Waste Treatment Laboratory – Biotar since 2014, the professor developed the biomass biorefinery, equipment capable of transforming solid waste from the food industry (such as straw and sugar cane bagasse, orange peel, among others) in bioenergy and value-added products.
The biomass biorefinery uses supercritical technology. A supercritical fluid is any substance subjected to temperature and pressure conditions above its critical point, in which there is no distinction between its liquid and gaseous state. In the case of Biotar, water is used. Subjected to conditions of high temperature and pressure, water acquires characteristics of a supercritical fluid and has both liquid and vapor properties, and can be used in this process.
Read article in full published on the Unicamp Innovation Agency website.
