Abstract
The wine industry generates large volumes of organic effluents, whose inadequate management poses significant environmental challenges but also offers opportunities for resource recovery. In this work, an integrated biorefinery scheme for the valorization of winery effluents is proposed and evaluated through steady-state simulation in Aspen Plus®. The biorefinery converts winery wastewater into a portfolio of value-added chemicals and biofuels, including levulinic acid, propylene glycol, formic acid, light gases, naphtha, sustainable aviation fuel, green diesel, and bioethanol, while enabling water recovery and carbon dioxide management. Two alternative CO2 capture routes are analyzed and compared: a conventional CaO-based carbonation-calcination process and an innovative absorption system using deep eutectic solvents (DES), specifically choline chloride-urea. Technical performance is assessed through chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, recovery, conversion, yield, and product mass ratios. Economic feasibility is evaluated using profit-based indicators, while environmental performance is quantified through CO2-equivalent emissions associated with utility consumption. Results show that the proposed biorefinery achieves a COD removal efficiency of 99.99%, producing treated water compliant with Mexican regulations for internal reuse. The DES-based configuration reduces raw material costs by 48.86%, enables hydrogen recovery as an additional valuable product, and increases overall profit by 2.86% compared to the CaO-based scheme. Although the relative reduction in total CO2 emissions is modest (˜0.5%), the DES configuration achieves an absolute annual reduction of 2, 198 t CO2. Overall, the results demonstrate that integrating DES-based CO2 capture into winery effluent biorefineries enhances economic performance and supports circular economy principles through waste valorization, water reuse, and emissions mitigation.