Strategies of Treatment

Agricultural biomass wastes/residues are predominantly crop stalks, leaves, roots, fruit peels and seed/nut shells that are normally discarded or burned. However, there are some challenges in trying to determine the extent of crop-produced biomass in relation to what is a ‘loss’ (from production, post harvesting and processing), or a ‘waste’ (retail or consumer loss). Then, the choice of a treatment strategy is not a simple task; in some cases, will be necessary an association of processes—chemical, biochemical, thermochemical and physical categories—to achieve the better result. This Chapter explore application strategies for these four processing categories to several agroindustrial wastes and residues. Moreover, aspects of environmental management and circular economy are discussed (Parts of this chapter were reproduced with permission from: Do Amaral AC, Kunz A, Steinmetz RLR, Contelli F, Scussiato LA, Justi KC (2014) Swine effluent treatment using anaerobic digestion at different loading rates. Engenharia Agricola 34: 567–576. Copyright information: 2014, Scielo), (Parts of this chapter were reproduced with permission from: Garg A, Mishra IM, Chand S (2010) Effectiveness of coagulation and acid precipitation processes for the pre-treatment of diluted black liquor. Journal of Hazardous Materials 180: 158–164. Copyright information: 2010, Elsevier).