EUBCE 2026 - Luna FRANK - Green Biorefinery Side Stream Holds Potential for Value Added Products

Green Biorefinery Side Stream Holds Potential for Value Added Products

Short Introductive summary

There is growing interest in circular bio-based economies such as the green biorefinery concept to tackle the insecurity of plant-based protein sources in Europe. While the main product of interest in this model is the leaf protein concentrate, which is used to produce animal feed, in order to make the whole process economically viable, every aspect of the grass crop and all by-products of the process must be valorised. One such by-product of the leaf protein isolation is a liquid effluent known as brown juice (BJ) which can be valorised using anaerobic fermentation technologies to high value organic acids (OAs). The BJ demonstrated an excellent potential for OA production resulting in high yields. With further optimisation BJ, from a variety of grass-based substrates, shows strong potential to be used for future upscaled AD processes due to its high rate of fermentation to OA and potential for selective butyric acid production.

L. Frank, University of Galway, IRELAND
C. Nzeteu, Technological University of the Shannon, Athlone, IRELAND
V. O'Flaherty, University of Galway, IRELAND