The costs of sugar production from different feedstocks and processing technologies

Abstract

Sugar production is essential for the production of foods, biochemicals, and biofuels via biochemical or catalytic routes. Sugar‐containing crops, and starch‐based and cellulosic feedstocks are resources for sugar production via juice extraction, starch saccharification, and pretreatment and hydrolysis, respectively. Technologies have been developed to attain a high sugar yield; however, production costs are a major consideration in commercializing newly developed approaches to the production of sugars. In this review, the fixed capital and production costs of sugar produced from first‐ and second‐generation crops are summarized. As expected, first‐generation crops provide the lowest fixed capital costs, ranging from 0.01 to 0.13 $ kg−1 feedstock, and have production costs ranging from 0.22 to 0.55 $ kg−1 sugar. For cellulosic crops, because of their recalcitrant structure and complex processing, the fixed capital and production costs are higher, ranging from 0.02 to 1.10 $ kg−1 feedstock and 0.10 to 3.37 $ kg−1 sugar, respectively. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Using Techno-Economic Modelling to Determine the Minimum Cost Possible for a Microbial Palm Oil Substitute

“…Sugars are a common carbon and energy source for microbial cultivations and oleaginous heterotrophs can consume them simultaneously or sequentially [34]. Using sugar crops for microbial oil production is simpler than starchy or cellulosic biomass, as pre-treatment and saccharification are not required [35], as such the cheapest source of sugars are still first generation sugarcane [23]. As such our prospective microbial lipid production plant was assumed to be adjacent to a sugarcane mill from which sugars from sugarcane juice are provided.…”

Economic Analysis of Cellulosic Ethanol Production from Sugarcane Bagasse Using a Sequential Deacetylation, Hot Water and Disk-Refining Pretreatment

“…The pretreatment technology chosen affects operating costs related to utility consumption (steam, electricity), labor and wastewater treatment. Feedstock and chemical costs are similar among various pretreatment options and these make up 60% of the total production costs [8]. An economic comparison of leading pretreatment technologies, using the same process assumptions, found that LHW pretreatment has higher production cost than dilute acid and ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX) due to lower ethanol yields and higher energy inputs [8,9].…”

“…Feedstock and chemical costs are similar among various pretreatment options and these make up 60% of the total production costs [8]. An economic comparison of leading pretreatment technologies, using the same process assumptions, found that LHW pretreatment has higher production cost than dilute acid and ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX) due to lower ethanol yields and higher energy inputs [8,9]. However, the pretreatment operating conditions play an important role in determining production cost, especially utility cost.…”

“…After feedstock, enzymes (e.g., cellulase) are the next largest material cost item (>20%) [9,11]. Onsite enzyme production is considered as a promising approach to reduce enzyme costs [8], albeit an onsite enzyme production facility inflates fixed capital costs by 13%.…”

“…Basic (mostly AFEX) and LHW (i.e., hydrothermal and liquid hot-water) pretreatments have higher MESP ($3.69 to $5.08/gal) than dilute acid pretreatments ($3.40 to $4.38/gal) [9,12]. However, there are other factors that could affect ethanol production costs, including solids content during hydrolysis and fermentation, fermentation technologies, material and equipment suppliers, and biorefinery site selection [8]. Therefore, under a very conservative scenario, the MESP for dilute-acid pretreatment increased to $7.08/gal [9].…”