Bio-Refining
The primary objective of the Bio-Refining process is the safe recovery of values from waste materials. Bio Refining refers to the efforts to convert or capture energy from various types of waste streams, I have attempted to layout an overview of the flow pathways involved in the bio-refining process.

Bio-Refining Collaborative Forum
By-ProductSynergy.com has established an online Forum that invites open Collaboration to share ideas primarily surrounding Bio-Refining. It is our hope that the Forum may provide a networking opportunity that assists in the advancement of the efforts related to Bio-Refining.
Please feel free to contribute your input to the Bio-Refining Forum group.

Waste Treatment
The Bio-Refining approach may minimize the disposal impact of identified waste streams and realize the environmental benefits of converting waste materials into energy or commodities that possess tangible economic values.
Managing the ultimate disposition of scrap, waste or by-products and their related undesired emissions while conserving invaluable resources is a more responsible method to achieve environmental sustainability.
An increased focus on Residual By-Products and captive management of trace elements with a longer term view of safe and sound practices.
Thermal Reduction Waste Inputs

The Bio-Refining system generates a variety of BioEnergy Renewable output products. These products include materials in solid, liquid or gaseous states. These output products are generally grouped into a term referred to as green biofuels.

Bio Gases
Captured gases from a thermal reduction process provide the opportunity to harness energy and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Hot Gas Extraction (HGE) process allows the ability to selectively recover Renewable Natural Gas (RNG). The alternative outputs are primary focused on the selection, purification and recovery of Hydrogen and CO2.

Bio Crude
The liquid fraction of materials recovered from the thermal reduction process commonly referred to as Bio Oils or Bio Crude.
The distilling of Bio Crude separates the lighter fraction oils from the heavy oils which unlocks a wide number of Value-Added Products. Fractionating Bio Crude oil yields various quantities of gasoline, naphtha, paraffin, kerosene, diesel, bunker and marine fuel, bitumen and tars.

Biochar
Solid particulate resulting from the thermal reduction process is commonly referred to as Biochar. The Biochar material is widely promoted as a soil amendment additive.
There are a number of alternative uses for the carbon based solids collected from the thermal reduction process include as a clean coal substitute.

Solid Pyrolysis Fraction
The primary pyrolysis stage produces a Hot Gas fraction and a soild fraction. Typically the primary solid fraction consists mostly of carbons and a mix of inert materials.
A secondary pyrolysis step purifies the carbon fraction and segregates it from balance which is an inert fraction consisting of metals, minerals, residual materials and trace elements. This concentrated inert fraction provides an opportunity for the extraction of metals and minerals.
The selective extraction of each dominate item (metal or mineral) sequentially results in a highly concentrated remaining balance fraction.

The remaining residual materials and trace elements contain a consolidation of Critical Materials. This concentrated byproduct stream represents a largely untapped source of strategic materials that may become a highly desirable method to insure the availability of a secure supply chain.

Clean Carbon Fuel
The Pyrolytic Carbon recovered from the thermal reduction process can be manufactured into a purified clean carbon fuel that may be used as a synthetic coal substitute. This is an ideal raw feed stock for an Internal BioFuel Pipeline that may be consumed in a Closed-Loop Combustion system that maintains a controlled captive CO2 environment.

Energy & Commodity Markets
External Energy & Commodity Markets are largely driven by worldwide supply and demand, but many energy related markets are tethered to direct recurring transactional relationships versus an open spot market. The demand for green BioEnergy Renewables currently seems to be insatiable.
The Bio-Refining process provides flexibility in the output flows of types of BioEnergy Renewables and may be adjusted according to current market conditions.

Bio-Refining By-Products
Most typical recovery processes are highly selective with the incoming feed stock they accept which largely controls the by-product output. In the case of expanding the scope of incoming waste streams into a Bio-Refining operation this will directly impact the complexity of the Residual By-Product handling requirements. The back end processing may need to be expansive to the point of additional add-on modules to handle specific by-product streams.
The deliberate selection of incoming waste streams that contain particular types of by-products may directly impact the overall economic outcome of the operation. Increasing the flow of wastes that contain metals or inert minerals effect the by-product outputs.

Internal BioFuel Pipeline
Bio Refining is energy intense and to satisfy the energy requirements to operate the bio refining process energy may be captured from the raw waste feed stocks. The raw feed stock is made up of waste materials that contain energy, the operation of the bio refining process releases energy from the waste feed stock. A portion of the recovered biofuels may be diverted to satisfy the power requirements to maintain the ongoing operations.
Tapping into this source of system fuel is referred to as an Internal BioFuel Pipeline. This flexible pipeline provides a discretionary option as to what recovered materials to use as internal fuel.

Closed-Loop BioFuel Combustion
Tapping into the Internal BioFuel Pipeline to provide the source of heat to operate the thermal reduction process.
The Closed-Loop BioFuel Combustion process involves the controlled rapid oxidization of a pre-selected mixed flow of pre-prepared BioFuels with the capture of emissions for recovery within the bio-refinery system.
The Bio-Refining system is a unique capture and recovery procedure focused on the elimination of emissions of greenhouse gasses.
The use of reverse combustion technology will allow the production of carbon products directly from recovered CO2.

Heat & Steam
The operation of a thermal reduction process requires the ongoing input of heat to maintain the reaction temperatures to decompose the incoming feed stocks of raw waste materials. The excess exhausted heat from the primary thermal reduction unit may be used to preheat the incoming pipeline fuels for the combustion unit or to produce steam. The steam may be used to assist in the Hot Gas Extraction process or to drive a steam turbine to generate electricity.

Electricity
Electricity is a desirable output from the Bio-Refining process, any electricity not required for internal consumption may be used as an energy source for an ongoing battery charging venture or to power the grid. Electricity may be generated from heat/steam recovery, but may also be derived through the power conversion process by tapping into energy contained within the BioEnergy Renewables with the use of electro-cell generating technologies. Electricity generated from the Bio-Refining process may be considered as an ultra green source of power.

Inputs
The parameters of the design, operation and outputs of a Bio-Refining process is largely determined by the Raw Inputs or feed stocks. The most common feed stocks will source from some mix of Hydrocarbon Wastes. Please feel free to check-out additional info on the recovery of Hydrocarbon Waste Streams.

Output Harvests
One of the largest challenges in the design of a Bio-Refining system is to maximize an optional flexibility of both input points and Output Harvests at each stage of the process. The common outputs are grouped into what is known as BioEnergy Renewables.

Energy Intensity
Bio-Refining is energy intensive and some of the material process streams may consume large percentages of the product outputs to fuel the process. In common industrial manufacturing applications this would be viewed as inefficient and unacceptable. In the case of bio-refining of waste materials, process losses normally considered as inefficient are anticipated and acceptable provided that fuel requirements are contained within the incoming feedstocks and no external energy is required (or needs to be acquired).

If the primary goal of any bio-refining operation is as a waste treatment process than any net output harvest is a bonus. Since many raw incoming waste material feedstocks contain high BTU or calorific values, the bio-refining process will yield a positive output of products or energy.

Bio-refining of waste material is only a method of converting or unlocking hidden values that exist within the raw feedstocks. Check-out a Novel Approach to Waste Recovery.