Pre-processing

Pre-processing technologies are utilised in the pre-treatment of biowaste to obtain chemicals and/or materials which will then go into the conversion followed by an optional post-processing after which the final product is obtained. While some technologies are used exclusively for the purpose of pre-processing, others such as the separation processes and technologies can be utilised in both pre- and post-processing.

Chemical processes and technologies (these might be hybrid processing)

• Hydrolysis
  • Acid
  • Alkali
  • Salt
    • Metal salts
    • Sulphite salt
  • Solvent
    • Organosolv
• Ionic liquids
• Oxidation

Physical processes and technologies (these might be hybrid processing)

• Densification
• Sizing
  • Chipping
  • Grinding
• Microwave treatment
• Steam explosion
• Ultrasonication

Separation technologies

• Mechanical separations
  • Centrifugation
  • Membrane filtration
  • Particle classification, sieving
  • Particle filtering
• Physicochemical separations
  • Chromatography
  • Crystallisation and precipitation
  • Distillation
  • Drying
    • Air drying
    • Nitrogen drying
    • Freeze drying
    • Thermal drying
    • Vacuum drying
  • Extraction
  • Field-Flow fractionation (FFF)
    • Asymmetric flow FFF (AF4)
    • Centrifugal FFF
    • Electrical FFF
    • Split flow thin-cell fractionation (SPLITT)
    • Thermal FFF
  • Flocculation

Thermochemical processes and technologies

• Ammonia fibre expansion
• Hydrothermal processing