Humins in the environment: early stage insights on ecotoxicological aspects

Abstract : With the growing interest of a circular economy, the use of lignocellulosic residues such as lignins and humins as potential renewable feedstock for biorefining processes looks more and more promising. With humins, many challenges are still remaining for their sustainable use, starting from the need of providing reference data reflecting actual usable feedstocks of such materials. With this perspective, this paper offers a first outlook on the potential environmental fate of those materials and components, all related to furanics, a family of compounds for which toxicity is still a matter of debate. During the assessment, the conventional OECD ecotoxicity and biodegradability tests demanded by the European REACH regulation for a primary evaluation of environmental hazards were performed in combination with fish immunomarker tests to study the possible long-term effects on aquatic ecosystems. These first results are promising as humins did not exhibit any immediate ecotoxicological concerns and hence would allow considering their use in environmental-friendly applications.