Embrapa Agroenergia focuses on the efficiency and sustainability of agriculture

Contribute to ensuring that biofuels and bioenergy are produced with greater efficiency and sustainability, thus helping to guarantee the country's energy security. This is one of the most important strategies that have guided Embrapa Agroenergia's research agenda, which, since its creation, has worked on developing new high-performance technologies for the agroenergy markets. 

Another equally important strategy that is also on the unit's agenda is the development of new industrial models and processes that make it possible to produce, from biomass, in addition to biofuels and agroenergy, new bioproducts including bioinputs. “We are increasingly inserted in the context of consolidating the new national bioeconomy”, states the general head of the unit, Alexandre Alonso. “Today, Embrapa Agroenergia is associated with the energy transition, decarbonization, circular economy, biorefineries, green reindustrialization and sustainable intensification agendas. Contemporary and important agendas for the bioeconomy”.

In Brazil, the bioeconomy - which seeks to replace fossil fuels with fuels of (bio) renewable origin and chemical products and non-renewable materials with bioproducts - has been a reality since at least the mid-1970s. At this time, the National Program was created of Alcohol (Proálcool), a pioneering initiative that invested in the production of a biofuel from sugar cane as an alternative to the scarcity and high prices of fossil fuels resulting from the oil crisis.

By investing in the bioeconomy, nations like Brazil seek to explore new business opportunities and competitive advantages of already established agro-industrial systems, in addition to those that come from broad natural biodiversity, as a way of promoting rapid social and economic development. 

In a global context of energy transition, a Research Center like Embrapa Agroenergia, with an agenda focused on biofuels and bioproducts, is of strategic importance because it contributes to changing production and consumption models, dependent on fossil raw materials and emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, for low-carbon or even carbon-neutral models. 

According to the general manager, the role of research carried out by the Unit today is even more of a priority. “When Embrapa Agroenergia was created, our focus was almost exclusively on the generation of technologies aimed at greater production of biofuels and agroenergy, without an environmental and decarbonization component as evident as we have today”, he explains. “However, a few years ago, the sustainability and decarbonization agendas became inseparable from the agenda for developing new technologies aimed at the sustainable production of biofuels and bioproducts.” 

Among the examples he cited are the National Biofuels Policy, RenovaBio, which linked energy efficiency with environmental efficiency, through the energy-environmental efficiency score. “In this context, new technological packages will allow the production of advanced biofuels with higher energy content and a lower carbon footprint, in addition to other bioproducts from biorefinery models”, commented Alonso. 

In his opinion, today there is a view from the perspective of biofuels and agroenergy, associating the decarbonization and sustainability agenda with a robust agenda of bioproducts, bioinputs, bioeconomy and sustainable intensification of agriculture. “Embrapa Agroenergia’s role is to connect the countryside and industry in increasingly vibrant and innovative markets”, he adds.

Start linked to the National Agroenergy Plan

Embrapa Agroenergy was created on May 24, 2006, as an action of the National Agroenergy Plan (PNA). In the first years, projects were established for the Research Center, based on the four axes established by the PNA: Ethanol, Biodiesel, Energy Forests and Coproducts and Waste. In its first years, the Unit focused on coordinating the research agenda in these four areas, coordinating R&D projects with other Embrapa Units, universities, science and technology institutes (ICT) and companies. As of 2010, with the inauguration of the Unit's headquarters building and modern thematic laboratories, Embrapa Agroenergia started to have its own Research and Development actions, expanding its operations to chemistry and biomass technology, in addition to biofuels.

The Unit was structured into thematic laboratories, including genetics and biotechnology, biochemical processes, chemistry and technology of biomass and biofuels, responsible for initiating the intense activity in microbial biotechnology, industrial biotechnology and processes.  

According to Alonso, at first, Embrapa Agroenergia focused on developing and testing biomass and diversifying raw materials for biodiesel production, researching native palm trees, such as macaúba, in addition to developing varieties of sugar cane, through of biotechnology. Subsequently, in addition to working with new biomass and biotechnology, the Unit began to dedicate itself to the development of industrial bioprocesses, that is, research focused on converting biomass into biofuels.

“We maintained a line focused on biomass, but expanded to the bioprocess line”, he highlighted, remembering the expansion of the Unit’s challenges, which began to focus not only on the agroenergy market, but also on the chemical and materials industries.

In 2016, the Research Center reorganized its actions into four new axes: Biomasses for Industrial Purposes, Industrial Biotechnology, Renewable Chemistry and Renewable Materials, aiming to establish a positioning focused on the development of the bioeconomy, in two main areas: biofuels/agroenergy and renewable bioproducts/chemicals. The period coincided with the review of the business model, and Embrapa Agroenergia began to act strategically oriented to carry out open innovation.

In the same year, Embrapa Agroenergia was accredited as the first Embrapa Unit in the Brazilian Industrial Research and Innovation Company (Embrapii), with the aim of carrying out research with partners in the industrial sector. The initiative was so successful that Embrapa Agroenergia was reaccredited, expanding the scope of action to cover all thematic areas in which it conducts research.

As a result, more than developing assets and then offering them in a standard technology transfer strategy, the Unit began to identify in the market what the challenges and difficulties of its customers were and to co-create or co-develop new technological solutions with strategic partners. and customers. At the same time, Embrapa Agroenergia began producing a series of prospective studies and implemented the Biofuels and Bioproducts Trend Observatory to point out scenarios, trends and key technologies for the development of solutions that supported the delimitation of the Unit's new scope of action. 

“We started to operate from the perspective of open innovation, co-developing and co-creating technological solutions together with partners for concrete market problems”, he highlights. “These new challenges began to arise from the demands of our clients and the scenario that was highlighted by the trend observatory, which helped guide our project portfolio”, said Alonso. 

This 17-year trajectory led Embrapa Agroenergia to establish itself as a vector of the sustainable bioeconomy. The new high-performance technologies for the biofuels, bioenergy, bioproducts for industrial application and agricultural bioinputs markets developed by the Center are a clear and direct contribution to the decarbonization of the economy and the transformation of the country's production chains.

Biomasses 

Embrapa Agroenergia's R&D program is currently focused on the development of biomass and chemical, biochemical and biotechnological processes for the production of biofuels and bioproducts, such as bioinputs.

“In the biofuels segment, research stands out for the development of biomass with special characteristics combined with processes that aim at greater efficiency in the production of ethanol, biodiesel and other advanced fuels, such as green diesel, sustainable aviation fuels (SAF, acronym in English) and green hydrogen, in addition to R&D actions for the production of biogas and biomethane, for the use of agro-industrial waste and for the valorization of digestate as biofertilizer”, explained the deputy head of R&D at Embrapa Agroenergia, Bruno Laviola. 

In the logic of biorefineries, UD develops assets focused on the production of bioinputs for agriculture and livestock, such as biofertilizers, biostimulants for plants and bioactives for animal nutrition. As for agroindustry, research has developed bioinputs and bioproducts that contribute to greater efficiency and decarbonization of production processes, aimed, for example, at the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and other renewable-based industries. 

“It is also important to highlight the Unit’s Microorganism and Microalgae Germplasm Bank, which is the basis for the development of various technological solutions for the production of biofuels and bioproducts,” stated Laviola.

Technological Showcase with different solutions 

In the Embrapa Agroenergia Technological Showcase, a virtual space where the solutions developed by the Unit and partner institutions are available, it is possible to learn about the assets that can be traded through the open innovation model, allowing the transfer of technologies, in response to the demands of society. The objective is to provide raw materials, inputs and processes to the markets for biofuels, animal nutrition, chemicals and materials of renewable origin.

Technological assets are grouped into four axes worked by UD: Biomasses, Industrial Biotechnology, Renewable Chemistry and Renewable Materials.

In Biomasses, there are new features for the production of microalgae, canola, sugar cane and macaúba. In Industrial Biotechnology, microorganisms and enzymes that can be applied in the deconstruction of biomass, generation of chemical products, effluent treatment and biogas production. In the Renewable Chemistry axis, there are chemical processes or products obtained in these processes, using biomass or waste derived from it as raw material. These are technologies for biomass treatment, fruit drying and macaúba oil refining, biogas reforming, beta-carotene microencapsulation and biopesticides. And in the Renewable Materials axis, there are technologies for producing cellulose nanofibers and obtaining reinforced natural rubber.