Sugarcane Bagasse-Based Bioethanol Producing Biorefinery Plant Simulation and Technoeconomic Analysis

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Date

2019-10

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

Energy has been the driving force for economic development. However, the source of energy has become a big issue concerning the environmental pollution. Cellulosic bioethanol is one of the different types of alternative energy sources so far innovated. It is promised to replace the liquid fossil fuel and settle the fuel vs food competition. This area attracts researchers from around the world due to its abundant resource and environmentally friendly production process. Depending on that premises, this simulation-based bioethanol production research paper was dealt to investigate some of the scale up problems and to study the economic feasibility. The research paper carefully simulates the production process and analysis its techno-economic. The conceptual model used on this paper encompasses feedstock handling, pretreatment, saccharification, cofermentation, and production recovery. To validate the equation used by Aspen Plus to simulate enzyme kinetics, the mathematical equation for enzyme kinetics of hydrolysis and cofermentation were tested in Matlab. The techno-economic analysis for the overall production process was then studied depending on two models. The two models were bioethanol plant gate price assessment model (BPAM) and feedstock cost estimation model (FCEM). During the process sensitivity analysis is also performed using Aspen Plus built-in single objective function. The result of the sensitivity analysis showed that, the conversion rate of cellulose to glucose, feedstock cost, and enzyme loading have high factor in the minimum plant gate ethanol selling price determination. The relationship between scaling up and ethanol production capacity was uniformly corelated. The bioethanol for 5000 kg/h and 100000 kg/h of sugarcane bagasse was 296.518164 and 26443.563 respectively. This shows the positive correlation of the scale up and bioethanol production. In addition to that, the overall simulation result showed that the minimum plant gate ethanol selling price at breakeven point was $2.1174 per liter. This result indicates that, even in the most optimistic scenario, the price of cellulosic ethanol is much more expensive than the other similar fuels, gasoline. However, bioethanol can be competitive at some conditions. Some of the conditions that makes the biorefinery plant competitive enough on the local market are feed-in tariff and compulsory purchase of electricity, government direct subsidy, tax preference and R&D. In addition to the above condition, public awareness is also important. Finally, the researcher has recommended to government to revise the above condition to entertain such type of environmentally friendly biorefinery plants.

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Keywords

Bagasse-Based Bioethanol, Biorefinery Plant Simulation, Technoeconomic Analysis

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