Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4996261 | Biomass and Bioenergy | 2017 | 12 Pages |
Abstract
An advanced biorefinery design is proposed for co-producing n-butanol (butan-1-ol, CAS 71-63-3), acetone (propan-2-one, CAS 67-64-1) and ethanol (CAS 64-17-5) (ABE), as well as hydrogen (H2, CAS 4368-28-9) and biogas from lignocellulosic feedstock using mixed cultures. The biorefinery does not pretreat the feedstock and employs the hemicellulose (CAS 9034-32-6) and cellulose (CAS 9004-34-6) feedstock fractions for producing hydrogen and ABE in separate low-cost, low process-complexity fermentation stages. These reaction stages were designed based on the authors' own experimental data under Consolidated Bioprocessing (CBP) principles. The biorefinery design also includes a novel separation stage, electricity-steam cogeneration and heat integration. The technical feasibility of the proposed biorefinery is demonstrated through a parametric analysis of the total production costs (TPC) and energy efficiency with respect to feedstock price and biorefinery capacity. The feedstock price is proportional to its polysaccharides content as a way of assessing the impact of limited feedstock availability on TPC. The proposed CBP hydrogen and ABE fermentation technologies reduced fixed capital investment 7.7fold and 8.6fold for mid-size (1000Â t dâ1) and large (2000 t dâ1) capacities. The end-use energy ratio achieved was between 2.14 and 2.24 for this interval capacity. Design and process conditions were identified to achieve similar TPCs (0.75 $ Lâ1 for 1000Â t dâ1 and 0.63 $ Lâ1 for 2000 t dâ1, respectively) of sound conceptual designs previously published employing conventional technology. The results obtained in this study were compared with inflation-updated TPCs of conventional-technology biorefineries from works published over the past fifteen years, highlighting the advantages of the proposed design.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Process Chemistry and Technology
Authors
A. Sanchez, I. Valdez-Vazquez, A. Soto, S. Sánchez, D. Tavarez,