Pre-doctoral Contract in Design and Digitalization of Advanced Biorefinery Processes for the Valorization of Agri-food By-products

Would you like to join a leading, innovative organization strongly committed to research and providing value to society?

AZTI's purpose is to drive positive change for the future of people, contributing to a healthy, sustainable, and integral society. And you can be part of this challenge.

From the Efficient and Sustainable Processes team, we are looking for a person to carry out a Doctoral Thesis at AZTI on the topic "Design and digitalization of advanced biorefinery processes for the valorization of agri-food by-products".

The selected candidate will apply to the IKERTALENT 2026 - Grants for training research personnel and technology personnel in the scientific-technological and business field of the agricultural, fisheries and food sector. In this case, it is a program of grants for pre-doctoral research personnel (PhD) with a duration of 4 years.

Thesis title: Design and digitalization of advanced biorefinery processes for the valorization of agri-food by-products

Project tutors at AZTI: Bruno Iñarra, Marta Cebrián.

Center: AZTI Derio.

The project proposes to design, develop, and validate an integrated advanced biorefinery strategy to valorize by-products and secondary streams from the agri-food industry and obtain high value-added functional ingredients and bioactive compounds for food and nutraceutical applications. The approach will start from the selection and characterization of raw materials, considering aspects such as their composition, availability, stability, safety, and industrial application potential, paying special attention to streams that may contain proteins, peptides, fibers, lipids, phenolic compounds, minerals, or other components of technological and nutritional interest.

Based on the selected raw materials, valorization routes will be designed and optimized that may combine pretreatment, fractionation, bioprocesses, extraction, concentration, membrane separation, purification, and stabilization operations. The objective will be to advance towards the integral utilization of raw materials, maximizing overall yield and the conservation of the functional properties of the obtained ingredients, while simultaneously reducing resource consumption and the generation of waste streams.

The obtained ingredients and fractions will be characterized from a physico-chemical, technological, and functional point of view and, where appropriate, bioactive. Depending on their nature and intended application, parameters such as their composition, stability, solubility, emulsifying capacity, or antioxidant capacity may be analyzed, among other properties relevant to their future incorporation into food or nutraceutical matrices.

Digitalization will constitute one of the differentiating elements of the project. Critical variables and data capture points will be identified, and experimental databases will be structured to allow the relationship between raw material characteristics, operating conditions, and the properties of the obtained ingredients. Through multivariate analysis and predictive models, the aim will be to improve process control, reduce variability, define robust operating windows, and generate knowledge that facilitates subsequent scaling and transfer.

The approach will integrate technical, functional, environmental, and scalability indicators to identify configurations with the highest transfer potential. It is expected to validate at least one biorefinery route at laboratory scale, obtain one or several fractions or ingredients of technological or nutritional interest, and develop a digital framework applicable to the monitoring and optimization of processes. The results will contribute to establishing reproducible and transferable valorization processes, reducing the waste of agri-food streams, and advancing towards more efficient and circular production models.

The research will be carried out at AZTI's facilities in Derio, in a scientific-technical environment with laboratory and pilot scale capabilities and experience in by-product valorization, ingredient development, process eco-efficiency, and digitalization applied to food systems. The pre-doctoral person will join a multidisciplinary team that combines knowledge in food technology, biorefinery processes, complex matrix characterization, sustainability, data analysis, and technological transfer.