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Techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process
BACKGROUND: Replacing the energy-intensive evaporation of stillage by anaerobic digestion is one way of decreasing the energy demand of the lignocellulosic biomass to the ethanol process. The biogas can be upgraded and sold as transportation fuel, injected directly into the gas grid or be incinerate...
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2010
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945328/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20843330 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1754-6834-3-21 |
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author | Barta, Zsolt Reczey, Kati Zacchi, Guido |
author_facet | Barta, Zsolt Reczey, Kati Zacchi, Guido |
author_sort | Barta, Zsolt |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Replacing the energy-intensive evaporation of stillage by anaerobic digestion is one way of decreasing the energy demand of the lignocellulosic biomass to the ethanol process. The biogas can be upgraded and sold as transportation fuel, injected directly into the gas grid or be incinerated on-site for combined heat and power generation. A techno-economic evaluation of the spruce-to-ethanol process, based on SO(2)-catalysed steam pretreatment followed by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation, has been performed using the commercial flow-sheeting program Aspen Plus™. Various process configurations of anaerobic digestion of the stillage, with different combinations of co-products, have been evaluated in terms of energy efficiency and ethanol production cost versus the reference case of evaporation. RESULTS: Anaerobic digestion of the stillage showed a significantly higher overall energy efficiency (87-92%), based on the lower heating values, than the reference case (81%). Although the amount of ethanol produced was the same in all scenarios, the production cost varied between 4.00 and 5.27 Swedish kronor per litre (0.38-0.50 euro/L), including the reference case. CONCLUSIONS: Higher energy efficiency options did not necessarily result in lower ethanol production costs. Anaerobic digestion of the stillage with biogas upgrading was demonstrated to be a favourable option for both energy efficiency and ethanol production cost. The difference in the production cost of ethanol between using the whole stillage or only the liquid fraction in anaerobic digestion was negligible for the combination of co-products including upgraded biogas, electricity and district heat. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-2945328 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2010 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-29453282010-09-26 Techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process Barta, Zsolt Reczey, Kati Zacchi, Guido Biotechnol Biofuels Research BACKGROUND: Replacing the energy-intensive evaporation of stillage by anaerobic digestion is one way of decreasing the energy demand of the lignocellulosic biomass to the ethanol process. The biogas can be upgraded and sold as transportation fuel, injected directly into the gas grid or be incinerated on-site for combined heat and power generation. A techno-economic evaluation of the spruce-to-ethanol process, based on SO(2)-catalysed steam pretreatment followed by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation, has been performed using the commercial flow-sheeting program Aspen Plus™. Various process configurations of anaerobic digestion of the stillage, with different combinations of co-products, have been evaluated in terms of energy efficiency and ethanol production cost versus the reference case of evaporation. RESULTS: Anaerobic digestion of the stillage showed a significantly higher overall energy efficiency (87-92%), based on the lower heating values, than the reference case (81%). Although the amount of ethanol produced was the same in all scenarios, the production cost varied between 4.00 and 5.27 Swedish kronor per litre (0.38-0.50 euro/L), including the reference case. CONCLUSIONS: Higher energy efficiency options did not necessarily result in lower ethanol production costs. Anaerobic digestion of the stillage with biogas upgrading was demonstrated to be a favourable option for both energy efficiency and ethanol production cost. The difference in the production cost of ethanol between using the whole stillage or only the liquid fraction in anaerobic digestion was negligible for the combination of co-products including upgraded biogas, electricity and district heat. BioMed Central 2010-09-15 /pmc/articles/PMC2945328/ /pubmed/20843330 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1754-6834-3-21 Text en Copyright ©2010 Barta et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Barta, Zsolt Reczey, Kati Zacchi, Guido Techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process |
title | Techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process |
title_full | Techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process |
title_fullStr | Techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process |
title_full_unstemmed | Techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process |
title_short | Techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process |
title_sort | techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945328/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20843330 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1754-6834-3-21 |
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