Abstract: Process systems engineering（PSE）is playing an increasingly important role in the development of biorefinery. This paper introduces the existing application of PSE in process development，enterprise production and regional system design of biorefinery. To meet the requirements of biorefinery development，the possibility and necessity of PSE application in bio-reaction process simulation，enterprise production process optimization and production management optimization are discussed. Two important future directions of PSE’s application in biorefinery are proposed，one of which is the effort in large-scale system analysis for a complete biorefinery system including agriculture and forestry， and the other is the interdisciplinary cooperation with economics，management science and other sciences.