4. Perspectives and developments: towards the concept of biorefinery

4.1 Principle of a biorefinery

The economic and environmental analyses carried out on the basis of the initial pilot results quickly showed that the production of fuels by any of the second-generation biofuel chains alone would not be profitable without better valorization of biomass constituents (and derived by-products), in the form of materials and chemicals among other things. This approach would also have the added advantage of making the industry more independent of fuel price fluctuations in the event of high co-valorization rates. This observation has led to the emergence of the concept of biorefinery, defined as "an industrial complex, located on the same site, which processes and refines biomass products", by analogy with oil refineries, which process and refine petroleum...