Biorefineries: where biologists and engineers collide

The oil refinery is the chemical engineers natural home. What happens when biology enters the mix? At a biorefinery, biomass and biological processes are integrated to create bio-based products such as energy, chemicals, materials, food and feed. Biorefineries are now taking centre stage with Scottish Enterprise launching the biorefinery roadmap for Scotland in February 2015. Scotland could be viewed as a latecomer to this area but in reality the Scottish biorefinery is in existence since the first whisky was distilled and by-products fed to cattle and pigs. The whisky industry has driven innovation from the development of the first stills to implementation of sustainable practices with the sectors environmental strategy. So why haven’t other industries followed the whisky example? The answer lies in one of the other pillars of sustainability – economics. Producing a bio-based product can be energy intensive and expensive and products are often out-priced by similar oil-sourced commodities. This presentation addresses the challenges and opportunities in a biorefinery and summarises lessons learned from whisky distilleries. By working together, biologists and engineers can develop and implement fully integrated systems and researchers at Heriot-Watt University are ideally placed to lead this innovation.