The replacement of traditional and non-renewable resources by shifting towards renewable-based strategies is a strategy implemented by the European Union for a circular economy-based society. Among the various methods to produce renewable biofuels, hydrothermal carbonization is promising in terms of waste management. This technology involves thermochemical treatment of wastes at lower emperatures than other common thermal treatments such as pyrolysis or gasification. Here we review hydrothermal carbonization for managing a wide variety of biomass–wastes and obtaining value-added products. Three types of products are obtained: gases, liquids and solids. The solid carbonized product is the main product, which can be used for many applications, highlighting its use as substitute for fossil coal. Nonetheless, actual commercial plants hardly reach profitability by considering only the solid products. Therefore, this review focus on the integration of other processes. For instance, anaerobic digestion, catalytic conversion of gaseous streams and membrane technology for liquid concentration appear as the most interesting options to valorize all the products generated during hydrothermal carbonization.

通过转向可再生战略来替代传统和不可再生资源是欧盟为循环经济社会实施的战略。在生产可再生生物燃料的各种方法中，水热碳化在废物管理方面很有前景。该技术涉及在比其他常见热处理（如热解或气化）更低的温度下对废物进行热化学处理。在这里，我们回顾了用于管理各种生物质废物和获得增值产品的水热碳化。获得三种类型的产品：气体、液体和固体。固体炭化产品是主要产品，可用于多种用途，突出其作为化石煤替代品的用途。尽管如此，仅考虑固体产品，实际商业工厂很难实现盈利。因此，本次审查侧重于其他流程的整合。例如，厌氧消化、气流的催化转化和用于液体浓缩的膜技术似乎是使水热碳化过程中产生的所有产品增值的最有趣的选择。