1. What is bioeconomy?

In the bioeconomy, a large number of different processes are used with the aim of generating uniform products from a biological, often non-uniform raw material stream. Among other things, biological, chemical, mechanical and thermal processes are used to convert the biomass into either intermediate products or end products. A combination of different processes is also often used.

Various procedures are presented in more detail in the following chapters. These include, among others:

• The biological process of anaerobic fermentation, in which various microorganisms convert the biomass into biogas via various intermediate products,
• the chemical process of producing viscose fibers, whereby pulp is first dissolved in caustic soda and then “spun” into fibers in an acidic precipitation bath,
• various mechanical processes (in principle, for example, all harvesting processes can be counted as mechanical processes); in particular, the chapter on building and construction discusses various ways of using mechanically pretreated wood (e.g. in the form of beams) as construction timber,
• thermal processes in which the biomass is treated under the influence of temperature; for example, gases, oils or solids can be produced from biomass.

Depending on the process and the desired product, different methods are used and combined. In the following chapters, you will learn more about individual bioeconomy processes and products.