Abstract: The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in the characteristics of Eucalyptus spp. from Paraíba Valley region, Sao Paulo - Brazil after torrification process. Torrification is a thermochemical process that occurs at temperatures lower than the pyrolysis process as a pretreatment to improve biomass characteristics for use as biofuel energy in power generation. An experimental study was carried out in a batch reactor at three temperatures (240 °C, 260 °C and 280 °C) with residence time of 30 and 60 minutes. At the indicated operating conditions by elemental analysis, higher heating value and thermogravimetric analysis were evaluated. Result showed that there was a reduction in the oxygen/carbon (O/C) and hydrogen/carbon (H/C) ratios, causing an increase in the thermal energy quality of torrified wood, about of 28 % and 47 % at temperatures of 260 °C with residence time of 60 minutes and 280 °C with 30 minutes, respectively. A thermogravimetric analysis showed that at 260 °C the hemicellulose was almost completely degraded leaving the fuel in better conditions for combustion or gasification processes.

Biomass Refinery (BR) is a null pollution thermochemical sequential cracking of any biomass and some petrochemical products, which generates chemicals, liquid or solid fuels and inorganic submicrometric/nanometric powders (SM/NM) such as ashes, silica, and carbon black. The processing route, powder characterisation and addition of some ashes to red clay resulting a grès-type ceramics will be presented. Rupture strengths of the vitrified ceramics were respectively 36 MPa for pure clay, 44 MPa for clay + 13.5% MOL ash (organic matter of municipal solid waste), 50 MPa for clay + 20% F+20% CL* ash (50% MOL + 50% wood) and 42 MPa for clay + 40% feldspar (used for comparison). The reason why the BR-ashes are better than feldspar is due to their submicrometric and partially nanometric nature. The impact of BR-ash technology can be evaluated by its national potential production of 2 × 10(6) ton/year only from municipal solid waste (MSW) compared to 350,000 ton/year of national consumption. The first BR is under installation in Lorena - SP, Brazil.