Development and application in Aspen Plus of a process simulation model for the anaerobic digestion of vinasses in UASB reactors: Hydrodynamics and biochemical reactions

SuperPro Designer®, User-Oriented Software Used for Analyzing the Techno-Economic Feasibility of Electrical Energy Generation from Sugarcane Vinasse in Colombia

“…By using its built-in features to perform a TEA, it is possible to identify cost-sensible factors during the technological development and implementation stages. The above was supported by the results, showing that a vinasse-fed AD plant in Colombia is economically feasible when the processing flow rate is >25 m 3 /h, which corresponds with previous studies performed using ASPEN Plus ® and Excel ® [49][50][51][54][55][56][57]. Taking into account that the vinasse flow rates produced by Colombian distilleries are below the mentioned threshold, we proposed joining vinasse-waste streams to overcome the flow rate limitation.…”

“…According to the model, the total equipment costs for a vinasse-fed AD-plant (5000 m 3 ) were 1,034,524.57 USD. It is worth highlighting that previous techno-economic analyses with Excel ® and Aspen Plus ® for sugarcane-based vinasse processing through AD did not report equipment cost estimations [54,57].…”

“…The process simulation of sugarcane-based vinasse-fed AD plants using Aspen Plus ® is still an open field. Lorenzo et al (2019) [57] developed a process simulation considering an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) model using sugarcane-based vinasse as feedstock. They employed stoichiometric reactions from previous reports using the MATLAB ® software, and the reaction kinetics were calculated in FORTRAN.…”

Up-Flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) Technology for Energy Recovery: A Review on State-of-the-Art and Recent Technological Advances

“…The deepening of UASB hydrodynamics is fundamental to understand and model UASB reactor, providing useful insights for process optimization. Hydrodynamic UASB modeling is complex and should integrate AD process dynamics (for example by applying the widely known anaerobic digestion model number 1 (ADM1), developed by International Water Association (IWA) [ 52 ]), flow pattern, biofilm characteristics and sulfate reduction process [ 53 ]. A non-ideal flow was shown to better simulate UASB hydrodynamics by evaluating fundamental hydrodynamic parameters, such as Peclet number and dispersion coefficient [ 53 ].…”

“…Hydrodynamic UASB modeling is complex and should integrate AD process dynamics (for example by applying the widely known anaerobic digestion model number 1 (ADM1), developed by International Water Association (IWA) [ 52 ]), flow pattern, biofilm characteristics and sulfate reduction process [ 53 ]. A non-ideal flow was shown to better simulate UASB hydrodynamics by evaluating fundamental hydrodynamic parameters, such as Peclet number and dispersion coefficient [ 53 ]. UASB reactor hydraulics can be described with a dispersive model or a multi-continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) model [ 54 ].…”