Polygeneration using agricultural waste: Thermodynamic and economic feasibility study

• Polygeneration from agriculture waste with power, utility heat, refrigeration and ethanol is proposed.
• Aspen Plus® model is developed for all processes.
• Performance of polygeneration for three agriculture waste is evaluated.
• Performance variation of the unit for varying ethanol production is also presented.

Agricultural wastes vary widely in composition. Presently, these are either of no use or remain under-utilized in absence of available technology. Many of these have useful calorific values and can be used more efficiently with the development of suitable technology. Availability of these also varies widely in places and over the year. Polygeneration is the delivery of multiple utility outputs efficiently from a single unit through proper system integration. Combining suitable utility outputs with local agricultural wastes as inputs to polygeneration can be efficient future sustainable solution for rural people. Preliminary feasibility and performance estimation using thermodynamic model in Aspen Plus® for such polygeneration with electricity, refrigeration, utility heat and ethanol as outputs is reported in this paper. Also economic feasibility of the polygeneration plant is reported in this paper. Rice straw, sugarcane bagasse and coconut fiber dust are three typical different agricultural wastes and are considered as inputs. Results show that such polygeneration is highly promising as decentralized efficient option, specifically for rural people.