Techno-economic study of NMMO pretreatment and biogas production from forest residues

Abstract

Biogas is nowadays getting more attention as a means for converting wastes and lignocelluloses to green fuels for cars and electricity production. The process of biogas production from Nmethylmorpholine oxide (NMMO) pretreated forest residues used in a co-digestion process was economically evaluated. The co-digestion occurs together with the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW). The process simulated the milling of the lignocelluloses, NMMO pretreatment unit, washing and filtration of the feedstock, followed by an anaerobic co-digestion, upgrading of the biogas and de-watering of the digestate. The process also took into consideration the utilization of 100,000 DW (dried weight) tons of forest residues and 200,000 DW tons of OFMSW per year. It resulted in an internal rate of return (IRR) of 24.14% prior to taxes, which might be attractive economically. The cost of the chemical NMMO treatment was regarded as the most challenging operating cost, followed by the evaporation of the washing water. Sensitivity analysis was performed on different plant size capacities, treating and digesting between 25,000 and 400,000 DW tons forest residues per year. It shows that the minimum plant capacity of 50,000 DW tons forest residues per year is financially viable. Moreover, different co-digestion scenarios were evaluated. The co-digestion of forest residues together with sewage sludge instead of OFMSW, and the digestion of forest residues only were shown to be non-feasible solutions with too low IRR. Furthermore, biogas production from forest residues was compared with the energy produced during combustion.

Solid-State Anaerobic Digestion of Rice Straw for Biogas Production : A Review

“…Production of biogas has been started in the previous decades, for instance, in India that have produced biogas since 1950s [5]. The demand of biogas also has a positive rank in the global market [6].…”

Uncertainty over techno-economic potentials of biogas from municipal solid waste (MSW): A case study on an industrial process

“…Several techno-economic models have been reported for ethanol production; however, for biogas, the literature is mainly based on laboratory data with novel substrates such as citrus wastes, chicken-feather, and its pretreatments. [8,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] According to our knowledge, no industrial based biogas plants have been considered for techno-economic evaluation of MSW. The techno-economic evaluation considered in this study was based on an industrial biogas plant located in Borås (Sweden) that is fed with sorted organic MSW.…”

Biogas production by the anaerobic digestion of whey

“…Biogas produced in the digesters can be used in various activities such as home heating, heating of animals, production of electricity, lighting or sale of purified biogas as a vehicle fuel (Teghammar et al, 2014).…”