Feature

Biorefining in the UK: Perspectives on

opportunities, challenges, and the future
This Feature provides an insight into the potential of the UK bioeconomy from the Biorenewables
Development Centre (BDC). The BDC is an R&D centre that helps businesses develop ways to convert
plants, microbes, and biowastes into profitable biorenewable products. © 2017 Society of Chemical
Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

View online at Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com); DOI: 10.1002/bbb.1748

Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 11:12–14 (2017)

From oil-refinery to biorefinery • Using biomass or waste as a material for chemicals pro-
duction could bring potential long-term benefits of £8
he first commercial scale oil refinery is said to have billion to the UK.7

T been established in Scotland 165 years ago,1 hot on

the heels of the Industrial Revolution and facilitated
by new technologies, including the internal combus- Waste as a resource
tion engine. Now, we are witnessing a surge in new green
Although the potential economic contribution that waste
chemistry, molecular biology, and industrial biotech-
can make is still unclear, there is a shared consensus that
nologies that are heralding a new type of refinery: the
the opportunity to use waste as a biorefinery feedstock is
biorefinery.
enormous.8 Indeed, the UK Waste and Resources Action
Unlike its predecessor, these new refi neries will be reli-
Programme (WRAP) estimates that 10 million tonnes of
ant on renewable raw materials (biorenewables), including
‘post-farm-gate’ food is wasted across the UK every year,
plants, algae, and unavoidable wastes. These refineries will
40% of which is unavoidable.9
combine diverse technologies specific to the feedstocks
Unavoidable food waste is currently, at best, used to
available to make products for use in cosmetics, energy,
produce biogas or animal feed and, at worst, sent to land-
pharmaceuticals, transportation, construction, and tex-
fi ll. Significantly more value could be generated from
tiles as well as flavors and fragrances.
food-processing wastes and by-products and this is one
And it is not just an inkling of what is to come: as of the
of the objectives of WRAP’s new Courtauld 2025 initia-
early 1990s, 10% of chemical products were already being
tive. For instance, GSK, Veolia, and the Biorenewables
made from renewable, bio-based sources.2 The bioeconomy
Development Centre (BDC) have already proven at
is expected to grow substantially over the coming decades,
pilot-scale the potential for converting potato-processing
as evidenced by a growing number of national and interna-
and sandwich-manufacturing by-products into anti-
tional reports,3–5 and represents a huge opportunity for the
biotics, and have now started a new project funded by
UK and its businesses to stimulate sustainable economic
Scottish Enterprise to take the technology closer to
growth and export solutions to the global market:
commercialization.
• Across Europe the bioeconomy has an annual turno- Beyond the generation of manufacturing by-products,
ver of € 2 trillion and employs around 9% of the an estimated 47 million tonnes of municipal solid waste
workforce.6 (MSW) is produced in the UK every year, around 40% of
• It is envisaged that the UK bioeconomy could grow which is sent to landfi ll.10 A significant proportion of this
from £52 billion in 2013 to £58 billion in 20304 waste is organic in nature and, with the right technology,

Correspondence to: Fabien Deswarte

E-mail: fabien.deswarte@york.ac.uk

12 © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Feature: Biorefining in the UK
could be converted into a range of useful products. For
example, Wilson Bio-Chemical has developed a process
using steam and high pressure to convert the biologi-
cal portion (mainly food waste, garden waste, paper, and
cardboard) into a sterile fiber (Wilson Fibre®). As part of
an EU-funded project, Wilson Bio-Chemical, the BDC,
and several European partners are currently designing
a demonstration plant, located at the BDC, to assess the
potential of biorefining this fibre – turning it into biofuel
as well as high-value chemicals (e.g. butanol, hydrogen,
acetone, and ethanol).
Combining disruptive and off-the-
shelf technologies
Driven by both the volume and financial opportunity of
converting by-products and wastes into products, there is
growing activity in this area. This ranges from commercial
operators, such as AquaEnviro, Clearfleau, and Cambi,
providing off-the-shelf systems available for immediate
use (e.g. in anaerobic digestion (AD)), through to start-up
companies investigating novel technologies protected by
patents and academic research. The full spectrum of dif-
ferent technologies is being explored, including specific
hardware and processes as well as combinations in ‘zero
waste biorefinery’ concepts, and some will seek to prove
their technology is the solution. In reality, there is no one
right option – there are many ways to add value to waste;
however, they are all at different stages of development.
Biorefining builds on existing knowledge and concepts.
In the waste industry, the waste hierarchy is well estab-
lished and applied; more recently, the charity Feeding the
5000 reapplied this to food waste.11 However, there is a
gap between waste avoidance and waste management, that
biorefining could address: waste recovery or ‘upcycling’.
The top tier of waste management in Feeding the 5000’s
work immediately starts with composting and energy
recovery (i.e., anaerobic digestion or direct combustion).
However, with today’s technologies, it is possible to aim for
higher value products than energy or compost and more
importantly, there is also market demand for bio-based
products.
Similar to the petrochemical industry model, biore-
fi ning aims to use all parts of a given feedstock by
converting it into a range of products including high-
volume but low-value; and low-volume but high-value
products. Currently, the technologies to produce lower
value fuels and energy from biomass and biowastes are
more advanced than those to manufacture higher-value
© 2017 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 11:12–14 (2017); DOI: 10.1002/bbb
F Deswarte et al.
chemicals and materials, which still require further
exploration. Th is leads to a potential risk of technology
lock-in: a waste processor has the choice of a lower cost,
faster profit from a lower tier biorefi nery option using
established or even off-the-shelf technologies; or they
could take a medium-to-long term, higher-risk approach
by bringing a more complex concept from an earlier tech-
nology readiness level to market.
Building on lessons learned from the petrochemical
industry, it may be possible to maximize the opportunity
that waste represents. By developing a biorefinery in such
a way that revenue could be generated early, future refine-
ments and modules could be added in a step-wise fashion.
One example would be AD whereby phase one would gen-
erate energy from waste in a conventional AD and engine
arrangement. This could then be modified to produce
grid gas by adding clean-up technologies already available
today. Later, the unproven state-of-the-art technologies
could be added. Examples include extraction of high-value
products prior to AD such as oils or protein; removing
volatile fatty acids from mid-cycle for conversion to chem-
ical products such as plastics; and processing the residue
(digestate), either into a fertilizer product using known
technology or investigating novel ideas, such as extracting
products from the digestate.
The governmental renewable heat incentive12 for anaero-
bic digestion has supported the growth of the industry,
but now we have the opportunity to build on this estab-
lished biorefining foundation to generate the industry of
tomorrow.
UK growth potential
Although the UK bioeconomy’s potential is vast, several
studies have identified key barriers to growth, including:
• A lack of translation (i.e., translating meaningful
research findings into real-life products or processes)
and scale-up (i.e., moving from small-scale or labora-
tory-based processes to full-scale production).
• A lack of awareness of the future potential of the bio-
economy to produce chemicals, materials, and fuels
amongst businesses, investors, and, more generally, the
public.
• A lack of connectivity, communication, and collabora-
tion between biomass/waste-providing upstream and
biomass/waste-using downstream supply chains in the
UK, in particular, between the food sector (upstream)
and the chemicals sector (downstream).
13
F Deswarte et al.
Due to the huge variety of feedstocks and technologies,
businesses seeking support must identify the ‘best-fit’
center/s within the UK while also supplementing gaps
through consultancies or developing in-house capability.
Finding the right partners takes considerable time and
resource (e.g. relationship building, confidentiality agree-
ments, commercial contracts), committing several weeks
or months to engaging each separate organization before
work can progress.
Over the past 12 years, through a variety of national and
European mechanisms, several investments have been
made throughout the UK to establish open-access scale-
up biorefinery centers to tackle these challenges. Notably,
this includes BEACON (Wales), the Biorenewables
Development Centre (BDC – York), the Centre for Process
Innovation (CPI – Redcar), IBioIC (Scotland), and The
Biorefinery Centre (Norwich).
Recognizing the importance of collaboration in this emerg-
ing industry, these five leading centers across the UK have
now joined forces by forming a new alliance, BioPilotsUK.
One of the main drivers of this venture is to help businesses
quickly and easily access the right combination of expertise
and facilities for their projects, avoiding delays in finding the
right partners – and, ultimately, helping commercialize biore-
fining technologies more quickly.
Beyond the technology support, the UK government is
also aligning the policy landscape to support the bioec-
onomy, which it sees as a key source of growth and new
jobs. A national strategy is currently being developed by
the newly created Department for Business, Energy, and
Industrial Strategy (BEIS) for publication in 2017. In paral-
lel, the Industrial Biotechnology Leadership Forum (IBLF),
bringing together industry, government, and other critical
stakeholders, is refreshing the UK IB vision (to be published
in January 2017). The hope is that these strategies will pro-
vide a long-term framework for the rapid development of
the emerging bioeconomy sector in the UK.
Looking to the future
Between novel technologies, innovative ideas, changing
attitudes to “wastes”, new collaborations, and a supportive
policy landscape, the opportunities for the future of biore-
fining and the broader bioeconomy have never been better
in the UK. Although the time has passed to be able to lay
claim to the first industrial biorefinery, like we did for its
predecessor the oil refinery, the UK has the opportunity to
establish itself as a global leader in biorefi ning technology
development and bio-based product manufacture.
14 © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd | Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 11:12–14 (2017); DOI: 10.1002/bbb
Feature: Biorefining in the UK
Acknowledgment:
With thanks to the BDC’s current funders and supporters:
the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the
Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
and the University of York.
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