Development of a paddy-based biorefinery approach toward improvement of biomass utilization for more bioproducts

Improvement of biomass utilization productivity following cascading strategy is a priority for the biorefinery-based circular bioeconomy. In recent years, the field of energy research has seen an increasing interest in bio-products from paddy-based biorefinery, but the utilization of the entire value of paddy biomass to guide the commercial viability of its products has not been got feasible outcomes. Here we propose a potential pathway for a conceptual paddy biorefinery framework by addressing wastes for producing more products. The feasibility of the integrated biorefinery was demonstrated by the conversion of wastes into value-added products such as nano-silica and lignin. In particular, this is the first time that silica recovered from bioethanol system was continued to be reused to produce ZSM-5 and Ni/ZSM-5 as catalysts of rice straw lignin depolymerization achieving high conversion of lignin up to 95% and fair yield of phenolic products up to 41%. Material flow of an integrated biorefinery model was reported to give a future outlook for making most of the processing routes of rice residues. We also established a life cycle that follows the circular bioeconomy concept and discussed the relationship between each of potential bioproducts and their market opportunities. [Display omitted] •A sustainability framework for paddy-based biorefinery toward circular bioeconomy.•The CBE of the paddy based biorefinery has been fully report for the first time.•Maximize the use of biorefinery in CBE by recycling waste.•Paddy residues as a potential feedstock for biomaterial and biofuel.•Depolymerization rice straw lignin with Ni/ZSM-5 gives high phenolic content.