Brewery Spent Grain as sustainable source for value-added bioproducts: Opportunities and new insights in the integrated lignocellulosic biorefinery concept

Brewery Spent Grain (BSG) is the main by-product of beer production. However, there are still challenges to obtaining value-added bioproducts from BSG to reach the industrial scale. This review addresses potentialities and challenges for employing the biorefinery concept for BSG valorization: anaerobic digestion, dark fermentation, and pyrolysis. The combination of the technological routes in an integrated biorefinery scheme was also discussed, with the goal of transforming breweries into profitable biorefineries, given the maximization of raw material use, diversification of products obtained, increased efficiency of processes, and reduction of carbon footprint.