Mind the Pulp: Environmental and economic assessment of a sugar beet pulp biorefinery for biobased chemical production.

Sugar beet pulp, a byproduct from sugar beet refining, is used by farmers as fertilizer or sold as animal feed. Both options underestimate the potential of sugar beet pulp as a platform to produce specialty and bulky chemicals as a promising pathway for sustainable biochemicals - mind the pulp. This study proposes a biorefinery concept to produce food additives (pectin-derived oligosaccharides) and bulky chemicals (terephthalic acid).