Abstract
Brazil produces significant amounts of agricultural residues with potential for biorefinery valorization. However, the scientific literature on this topic remains scattered across various conversion methods. This study mapped research trends in the valorization of these residues from 2020 to 2025 through a bibliometric analysis. Records from the Web of Science and Scopus databases were combined, deduplicated, and screened for relevance, yielding a corpus of 777 documents, which were analyzed with Bibliometrix. Keyword co-occurrence network analysis revealed three main technological clusters: Biochemical (fermentation, biogas, and ethanol; 40.7 %), Thermochemical (biochar and activated carbon; 32.6 %), and Bioactive Extraction (phenolic compounds and antioxidants; 26.0 %). Sugarcane bagasse was the most common substrate, appearing in 25.5 % of publications, largely due to its widespread availability at processing sites. By 2025, the three routes converged toward similar proportions (around 33 % each), with 18.4 % of articles addressing more than one cluster. The convergence of these routes by 2025 signals a shift from the single-product conversion model toward an integrated biorefinery superstructure, in which lignocellulosic, carbonaceous, and phenolic fractions of by-products are valorized in cascade, with direct implications for plant topology and techno-economic assessment.
