Design of Value Chains for Microalgal Biorefinery at Industrial Scale: Process Integration and Techno-Economic Analysis

The objective of this work was to identify industrial scenarios for the most promising microalgal biorefinery value chains on the basis of product selection, yields, and techno-economic performance, using biological characteristics of algae species. The development, value creation, and validation of...

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Autores principales: Slegers, Petronella M., Olivieri, Giuseppe, Breitmayer, Elke, Sijtsma, Lolke, Eppink, Michel H. M., Wijffels, Rene H., Reith, Johannes H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7510460/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33015014
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.550758
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author Slegers, Petronella M.
Olivieri, Giuseppe
Breitmayer, Elke
Sijtsma, Lolke
Eppink, Michel H. M.
Wijffels, Rene H.
Reith, Johannes H.
author_facet Slegers, Petronella M.
Olivieri, Giuseppe
Breitmayer, Elke
Sijtsma, Lolke
Eppink, Michel H. M.
Wijffels, Rene H.
Reith, Johannes H.
author_sort Slegers, Petronella M.
collection PubMed
description The objective of this work was to identify industrial scenarios for the most promising microalgal biorefinery value chains on the basis of product selection, yields, and techno-economic performance, using biological characteristics of algae species. The development, value creation, and validation of several new processing routes with applications in food, aquafeeds and non-food products were particularly considered in this work. The techno-economic performance of various single product value chains (SP) and multiproduct value chains (MP) was evaluated for four industrial microalgal strains. Cost-revenue optimization was done for a 10 kton microalgal dry weight y(–1) simulated biorefinery plant, using flow sheeting software for equipment sizing, mass and energy flow modeling, and subsequent techno-economic evaluation. Data on yield, material and energy consumption were based on pre- and pilot size production plants (TRL 5–6). Revenue optimization was accomplished by first analyzing the performance of single product value chains of the microalgal strains. Subsequently, a strategy was developed to exploit almost all biomass based on the most promising microalgal strains. The cultivation costs are most of the time the major costs of the value chains. For the single product value chains common process bottlenecks are low product yields, especially for soluble proteins where only a small fraction of the biomass is leading to economic value. The biorefinery costs (excluding cultivation) vary significantly for various species, due to the species-specific operating conditions as well as differences in product yields. For the evaluated single product value chain scenarios the costs for utilities and other inputs were in general the highest contributing expenses. A biorefinery approach significantly increases the biomass utilization potential to marketable products from 7–28% to more than 97%. Although the cascading approach increases the total production costs of the multiproduct value chains significantly, this is more than compensated by the increased overall biomass revenue. For all selected multiproduct chains there is a significant potential to become profitable at a relevant industrial scale of 10 kton per year. Additional insights in the product functionality, quality, and their market size are needed to narrow down the wide range of foreseen product revenues and resulting profits.
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spelling pubmed-75104602020-10-02 Design of Value Chains for Microalgal Biorefinery at Industrial Scale: Process Integration and Techno-Economic Analysis Slegers, Petronella M. Olivieri, Giuseppe Breitmayer, Elke Sijtsma, Lolke Eppink, Michel H. M. Wijffels, Rene H. Reith, Johannes H. Front Bioeng Biotechnol Bioengineering and Biotechnology The objective of this work was to identify industrial scenarios for the most promising microalgal biorefinery value chains on the basis of product selection, yields, and techno-economic performance, using biological characteristics of algae species. The development, value creation, and validation of several new processing routes with applications in food, aquafeeds and non-food products were particularly considered in this work. The techno-economic performance of various single product value chains (SP) and multiproduct value chains (MP) was evaluated for four industrial microalgal strains. Cost-revenue optimization was done for a 10 kton microalgal dry weight y(–1) simulated biorefinery plant, using flow sheeting software for equipment sizing, mass and energy flow modeling, and subsequent techno-economic evaluation. Data on yield, material and energy consumption were based on pre- and pilot size production plants (TRL 5–6). Revenue optimization was accomplished by first analyzing the performance of single product value chains of the microalgal strains. Subsequently, a strategy was developed to exploit almost all biomass based on the most promising microalgal strains. The cultivation costs are most of the time the major costs of the value chains. For the single product value chains common process bottlenecks are low product yields, especially for soluble proteins where only a small fraction of the biomass is leading to economic value. The biorefinery costs (excluding cultivation) vary significantly for various species, due to the species-specific operating conditions as well as differences in product yields. For the evaluated single product value chain scenarios the costs for utilities and other inputs were in general the highest contributing expenses. A biorefinery approach significantly increases the biomass utilization potential to marketable products from 7–28% to more than 97%. Although the cascading approach increases the total production costs of the multiproduct value chains significantly, this is more than compensated by the increased overall biomass revenue. For all selected multiproduct chains there is a significant potential to become profitable at a relevant industrial scale of 10 kton per year. Additional insights in the product functionality, quality, and their market size are needed to narrow down the wide range of foreseen product revenues and resulting profits. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-09-08 /pmc/articles/PMC7510460/ /pubmed/33015014 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.550758 Text en Copyright © 2020 Slegers, Olivieri, Breitmayer, Sijtsma, Eppink, Wijffels and Reith. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Bioengineering and Biotechnology
Slegers, Petronella M.
Olivieri, Giuseppe
Breitmayer, Elke
Sijtsma, Lolke
Eppink, Michel H. M.
Wijffels, Rene H.
Reith, Johannes H.
Design of Value Chains for Microalgal Biorefinery at Industrial Scale: Process Integration and Techno-Economic Analysis
title Design of Value Chains for Microalgal Biorefinery at Industrial Scale: Process Integration and Techno-Economic Analysis
title_full Design of Value Chains for Microalgal Biorefinery at Industrial Scale: Process Integration and Techno-Economic Analysis
title_fullStr Design of Value Chains for Microalgal Biorefinery at Industrial Scale: Process Integration and Techno-Economic Analysis
title_full_unstemmed Design of Value Chains for Microalgal Biorefinery at Industrial Scale: Process Integration and Techno-Economic Analysis
title_short Design of Value Chains for Microalgal Biorefinery at Industrial Scale: Process Integration and Techno-Economic Analysis
title_sort design of value chains for microalgal biorefinery at industrial scale: process integration and techno-economic analysis
topic Bioengineering and Biotechnology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7510460/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33015014
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.550758
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