ORIGINAL ARTICLE Integral use of orange peel waste through the biorefinery concept: an experimental, technical, energy, and economic assessment M. Ortiz-Sanchez 1 & J.C. Solarte-Toro 1 & C.E. Orrego-Alzate 2 & C.D. Acosta-Medina 3 & C.A. Cardona-Alzate 1 Received: 8 October 2019 /Revised: 11 January 2020 /Accepted: 29 January 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract This work aims to evaluate from an energy and economic perspective the production of essential oil, pectin, and biogas as alternatives to valorize orange peel waste. For this, the chemical characterization, extraction of essential oil, and pectin of industrial of this residue samples were done. Moreover, the remaining solid was used to produce biogas. The experimental results were used as input data to simulate the biorefinery. The mass and energy balances from the simulation were used to perform energy and economic analysis of the biorefinery system analyzing the net present value and processing scale as determining factors. Also, mass and energy efficiency indicators were applied to evaluate the performance of the biorefinery. The experimental essential oil, pectin extraction, and biogas yields 0.61% w/w (wet basis), 10.35% w/w (wet basis), and 89.39 Nm 3 /ton OPW mL biogas/g VS with a CH 4 content of 66.73% (59.6 Nm 3 /ton OPW), respectively. The mass and energy indicators show a good performance of the process in terms of mass and energy efficiency indicators. Moreover, the economic analysis leads to observe that the proposed biorefinery is only feasible at low processing scales. In a conclusion, orange peel waste is a potential feedstock to obtain value-added products such as essential oil and pectin and energy vectors such as biogas in an energy and economic feasible way at low scales allowing the implementation of small-scale integrated biorefinery systems. Keywords Acid pectin extraction . Biorefinery concept . Economic assessment . Energy analysis . Orange peel waste 1 Introduction Second-generation biomass is considered as a potential feed- stock to obtain bulk and fine chemicals (e.g., furfural, citric acid, pectin), energy vectors (e.g., biogas, bioethanol, and biobutanol), and marketable products through the application of different processing lines and conversion routes [1, 2]. On the other hand, green concepts (e.g., circular economy and bioeconomy) have increased the application of second- generation biomass to decrease the number of waste streams derived from a particular process through better design strat- egies [3, 4]. Accordingly, different researchers have explored the way to increase the value of different productive chains through the valorization of agro-industrial residues obtaining marketable products [5]. For instance, the oil palm productive chain has as main products the palm and palm kernel oils. However, lignocellulosic residues such as palm pressed fibers, fronds, empty fruit bunches, and trunks are produced [6]. These residues have been used to obtain products such as heat, bioethanol, biobutanol, biogas, and syngas, which could be used to reduce the energy requirements of the oil palm mills, Highlights 1. The production of essential oil, pectin, and biogas are feasible at processing scales higher than 360 tonnes per year. 2. Orange peel waste is claimed as a potential feedstock to increase the incomes of the citrus productive chain. 3. The technical assessment suggests improving the biorefinery applying mass and energy integration strategies. 4. Essential oil is an economic driver in the orange peel waste biorefinery due to the high market price of this product. * C.A. Cardona-Alzate ccardonaal@unal.edu.co 1 Instituto de Biotecnología y Agroindustria, Departamento de Ingeniería Química, Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Manizales, Manizales, Caldas 170003, Colombia 2 Instituto de Biotecnología y Agroindustria, Departamento de Ciencias Exactas, Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Manizales, Manizales, Caldas 170003, Colombia 3 Departamento de Matemáticas y Estadística, Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Manizales, Manizales, Caldas 170003, Colombia Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-020-00627-y