Bioproducts or bio-based products are materials, chemicals and energy derived from renewable biological material.

Bioresources

Biological resources include agriculture, forestry, and biologically derived waste, and there are many other renewable bioresource examples.

Example

One of the examples of renewable bioresources is lignocellulose. Lignocellulosic tissues are biologically derived natural resources containing some of the main constituents of the natural world.

Categorization

Conventional bioproducts and emerging bioproducts are two broad categories used to categorize bioproducts. Examples of conventional bio-based products include building materials, pulp and paper, and forest products. Examples of emerging bioproducts or biobased products include biofuels, bioenergy, starch-based and cellulose-based ethanol, bio-based adhesives, biochemicals, bioplastics, etc. Emerging bioproducts are active subjects of research and development, and these efforts have developed significantly since the turn of the 20/21st century, in part driven by the price of traditional petroleum-based products, by the environmental impact of petroleum use, and by an interest in many countries to become independent from foreign sources of oil. Bioproducts derived from bioresources can replace much of the fuels, chemicals, plastics etc. that are currently derived from petroleum

Bioproducts engineering

Bioproducts engineering (also referred to as bioprocess engineering) refers to engineering of bio-products from renewable bioresources. This pertains to the design, development and implementation of processes, technologies for the sustainable manufacture of materials, chemicals and energy from renewable biological resources.

Alternative definitions