Waste recovery

First, Ma + D selects and divides the waste from the various stages of the manufacturing of a specific industry.

Each part of the process generates different waste that is likely to be treated in order to obtain high added value products.

In the research carried out by the Biorefinery Group, pruning waste can be studied and treated to obtain lignins, among other compounds. Lignins are the second most abundant basic component of biomass, and represent between 15% to 35% by weight of biomass.

In this example, Ma + D has managed to extract the lignin from this by-product (pruning residues) that can be used for the manufacture of some basic components (benzene, toluene and xylene “BTX”) to make new products that currently come from the oil industry, thus helping to develop products from biorenewable resources.

In addition, since pruning is required to “rejuvenate” forest plantations and the yield of fruit trees, it is not a process that causes deforestation, but to obtain the benefit of a normal activity within a food production industry with the use of such by-products (waste) generated.

In addition to the waste from pruning, we are studying the residues of excess production, citrus skins and other fruit residues, barks, stems, corn cobs, wood trimmings, sawdust, food pulp, roots, straw and even unloading sewage from the manufacture of cider and effluents from slaughterhouses, etc.

Lignins are also one of the byproducts of pulp cellulose production processes. The main components of the biomass (cellulose, lignin, hemicellulose) can be extracted from all types of lignocellulosic biomass: almond shells, corn cobs, wheat straw, etc.

That is, all the attention is focused on the main components of its chemical structure: cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, or to a lesser extent, in its extraction agents.

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