Technologies for the utilisation of biogenic waste in the bioeconomy

• Explains why it’s important to view the bioeconomy in the light of modern technological expansion.
• Stresses that old and new technologies need better techno-industrial integration to be sustainable.
• Numerous recent publications on biogenic waste technologies are drawn together.

A brief review has been done of technologies involved in the exploitation of biogenic wastes, in order to provide an introduction to the subject from the technological perspective. Biogenic waste materials and biomass have historically been utilised for thousands of years, but a new conversation is emerging on the role of these materials in modern bioeconomies. Due to the nature of the products and commodities now required, a modern bioeconomy is not simply a rerun of former ones. This new dialogue needs to help us understand how technologies for managing and processing biogenic wastes – both established and novel – should be deployed and integrated (or not) to meet the requirements of the sustainability, closed-loop and resource-security agendas that evidently sit behind the bioeconomy aspirations now being voiced in many countries and regions of the world.