Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) of Different Pretreatment and Product Separation Technologies for Cellulosic Butanol Production from Oil Palm Frond

Abstract

Among the driving factors for the high production cost of cellulosic butanol lies the pretreatment and product separation sections, which often demand high amounts of energy, chemicals, and water. In this study, techno-economic analysis of several pretreatments and product separation technologies were conducted and compared. Among the pretreatment technologies evaluated, low-moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) pretreatment has shown notable potential with a pretreatment cost of $0.16/L butanol. Other pretreatment technologies evaluated were autohydrolysis, soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA), and soaking in sodium hydroxide solution (NaOH) with pretreatment costs of $1.98/L, $3.77/L, and $0.61/L, respectively. Evaluation of different product separation technologies for acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation process have shown that in situ stripping has the lowest separation cost, which was $0.21/L. Other product separation technologies tested were dual extraction, adsorption, and membrane pervaporation, with the separation costs of $0.38/L, $2.25/L, and $0.45/L, respectively. The evaluations have shown that production of cellulosic butanol using combined LMAA pretreatment and in situ stripping or with dual extraction recorded among the lowest butanol production cost. However, dual extraction model has a total solvent productivity of approximately 6% higher than those of in situ stripping model.

Low Moisture Anhydrous Ammonia Pretreatment of Four Lignocellulosic Materials—Distillers Dried Grains With Solubles, Corn Gluten Feed, Corn Fiber, and Oil Palm Frond

“…α-cellulose content was assumed to be the most critical component because it gives the most sugar (glucose) for the fermentation process and is a high purity material for bio-based structural as such nanocellulose development (Phanthong et al, 2018), this was used to decide the most effective parameters for the LMAA pretreatment process. Following α-cellulose, hemicellulose also potentially can supply sugar (xylose) to the system (Mahmud and Rosentrater, 2020). It was observed that hemicellulose contents at the selected MC (30% for DDGS and OPF, and 50% for CGF and CF) were slightly less than those of the other MC, although the reason for the trend is unclear.…”

“…It is important to ensure that the utilization of these waste materials to be at the lowest economic effect possible to increase the whole life-cycle value of the primary product. Hence, this study proposed a way to utilize such co-products and other waste materials in a possibly lower-cost approach using LMAA pretreatment (Mahmud and Rosentrater, 2020). The study focused on investigating the effects of LMAA pretreatment on DDGS, CGF, CF, and OPF.…”

Cellulase cocktail saccharification and fermentation of jackfruit waste for biobutanol production: Statistical optimization and techno‐economic analysis

“…31 Biobutanol production from oil palm fronds employing gas stripping, pervaporation, liquid-liquid extraction, and adsorption as the purification techniques recorded unit production prices of $1.95, $2.30, $2.09, and $7.75 kg − 1 . 64 In the present work, adsorption was employed for the final purification of biobutanol. The adsorbent was prepared from JFW and has helped in avoiding the high cost of synthetic adsorbents.…”

Universal Kinetic Model to Simulate Two-Step Biodiesel Production from Vegetable Oil

“…x 10 − k 4 x 3 x 6 x 10 +k 5 x 2 x 6 x 10 − k 6 x 3 x 7 x 10 + k 7 x 2 x 7 x 10 − k 8 x 3 x 8 x 10 = 0; k 1 x 1 x 2 x 9 − k 2 x 3 x 4 x 9 = 0; −k 3 x 2 x 5 x 10 + k 4 x 3 x 6 x 10 = 0; k 3 x 2 x 5 x 10 − k 4 x 3 x 6 x 10 − k 5 x 2 x 6 x 10 + k 6 x 3 x 7 x 10 = 0; k 5 x 2 x 6 x 10 − k 6 x 3 x 7 x 10 − k 7 x 2 x 7 x 10 + k 8 x 3 x 8 x 10 = 0; k 7 x 2 x 7 x 10 − k 8 x 3 x 8 x 10 = 0; − k 1 x 1 x 2 x 9 + k 2 x 3 x 4 x 9 = 0; − k 3 x 2 x 5 x 10 + k 4 x 3 x 6 x 10 − k 5 x 2 x 6 x 10 + k 6 x 3 x 7 x 10 − k 7 x 2 x 7 x 10 +k 8 x 3 x 8 x 10 = 0; (2) where allocation of states corresponds to Equation (3):…”

“…In the global effort to generate non-contaminant renewable fuels, biofuels comprising biodiesel, bioethanol, biobutanol and biogas, among others, play a significant role. Nowadays, many researchers work to improve processing efficiency and the integration of cellulose (to date, expensive) and organic waste recycling, as raw materials, in economically sound processes [1][2][3].…”