**Effluent Cleaning, Greener Catalysts and Bioecomaterials from Agricultural Wastes**

A.M. Martínez Serrano, M. Ramos, M. Yates, M.A. Martin-Luengo, F. Plou, J.L. Lacomba, G. Reilly, C. Vervaet, P. Muñoz, G. Garcia, J.L. Tarterra, B. Fite, A. Urtzainki, M.C. Vidal, E. Sáez Rojo, L. Vega Argomaniz, A. Civantos and V. Zurdo

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/60018

**1. Introduction**

The transformation of subproducts and residues is of utmost importance, especially when it closes an industrial cycle, where solutions for environmental problems such as contamination leads towards a sustainable development, converting residues into value added products. Materials prepared from agricultural residues may be considered as Renewable Raw Materials [1,2]. Using these materials as a source for useful materials avoids the expense of employing other materials that are often non-renewable. This philosophy is denoted as "cradle to grave", since the residues of a company are used by the same or others [3].

Agriculture is one of the pillars of society, especially given the increasing world population. Countries which have large agricultural resources, such as Spain, also produce vast amounts of residues and wastes, that can be an environmental hazard, difficult to store, easily generating leakages and greenhouse gases such as ammonia, methane and carbon, nitrogen and sulphur oxides when burnt, therefore negatively impacting on the environment. However, these agriwastes can also be considered as a source of low cost renewable raw materials (RRM) that with the proper treatment can have applications in a wide range of processes, *i.e.* energy production, materials (fertilizers, animal feed, biodegradable plastics, resins, textiles, fibres, paper, *etc.*) and chemicals (platform molecules, solvents, additives), inside the Biorefinery concept, with the added bonus of not competing with food resources [4].

The work presented here uses agricultural wastes to prepare materials for effluent cleaning with rice and beer production wastes, etherification of glycerol from biodiesel production,

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enzyme immobilisation and use in biodiesel preparation and Bioecomaterials for tissue engineering and controlled desorption of bioactive substances.
