Technoeconomic Assessment of Hybrid Organosolv–Steam Explosion Pretreatment of Woody Biomass

Sennai Mesfun, Leonidas Matsakas, Ulrika Rova and Paul Christakopoulos
Additional contact information
Sennai Mesfun: RISE Research Institute of Sweden, P.O. Box 5604, 114 86 Stockholm, Sweden
Leonidas Matsakas: Biochemical Process Engineering, Division of Chemical Engineering, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, 971 87 Luleå, Sweden
Ulrika Rova: Biochemical Process Engineering, Division of Chemical Engineering, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, 971 87 Luleå, Sweden
Paul Christakopoulos: Biochemical Process Engineering, Division of Chemical Engineering, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, 971 87 Luleå, Sweden

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 21, 1-18

Abstract: This study investigates technoeconomic performance of standalone biorefinery concepts that utilize hybrid organic solvent and steam explosion pretreatment technique. The assessments were made based on a mathematical process model developed in UniSim Design software using inhouse experimental data. The work was motivated by successful experimental applications of the hybrid pretreatment technique on lignocellulosic feedstocks that demonstrated high fractionation efficiency into a cellulose-rich, a hemicellulose-rich and lignin streams. For the biorefinery concepts studied here, the targeted final products were ethanol, organosolv lignin and hemicellulose syrup. Minimum ethanol selling price (MESP) and Internal rate of return (IRR) were evaluated as economic indicators of the investigated biorefinery concepts. Depending on the configuration, and allocating all costs to ethanol, MESP in the range 0.53–0.95 €/L were required for the biorefinery concepts to break even. Under the assumed ethanol reference price of 0.55 €/L, the corresponding IRR were found to be in the range −1.75–10.7%. Hemicellulose degradation and high steam demand identified as major sources of inefficiencies for the process and economic performance, respectively. Sensitivity of MESP and IRR towards the most influential technical, economic and market parameters performed.

Keywords: organosovl; steam explosion; technoeconomic; biorefinery; ethanol; lignin; pretreatment; biofuels (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/21/4206/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/21/4206/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:21:p:4206-:d:283435

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().