Abstract
Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) is Louisiana's number one row crop. Growing and processing sugarcane produces significant amounts of byproducts, including bagasse, crop residue, molasses, filter-press mud, and boiler fly ash. These products represent an important opportunity to generate value-added and specialty products and enhance sugarcane's sustainability by facilitating a circular economy, where agricultural by-products are reused instead of disposing them (linear economy), in order to reduce resource use and energy demand. Examples of value-added products range from biochar, construction materials, animal feed, biofuels, nanoparticles, and fertilizer. Paramount to the success of the bio-based circular economy is creating useful products that are sustainable, economically, and environmentally acceptable. Some potential roadblocks to creating a successful bio-based circular economy from Louisiana's sugarcane by-products are highlighted. Core Ideas: The Louisiana sugar industry produces large amounts of biomass-derived byproducts each year. Byproducts could be reused, recycled, or reformed instead of being discarded. Creating industries around these products boosts the circular economy.
Description
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits use and distribution in any medium, providedthe original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.© 2024 The Author(s). Agricultural & Environmental Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America,and Soil Science Society of America. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.
Publisher
Wiley
Date of publication
5-2-2024
Language
english
Persistent identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/10950/4962
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Aita, G.; Bhatnagar, D.; Bruni, G. O.; Deliberto, M.; Eggleston, G.; Finger, A.; Gravois, K.; Isied, M.; Judice, W.; Kasson, K. T.; Lima, I. M.; Purswell, J. L.; Souliman, Mena I.; Terrell, E.; Tubana, B. S.; Waguespack, H. L. Jr.; Wang, J. J.; and White, P. M. Jr., "Creating a bio-based circular economy from Louisiana sugarcane byproducts" (2024). Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations. Paper 24.
http://hdl.handle.net/10950/4962