Simulation comparisons and economic consideration of Citrus waste by fast pyrolysis

Across the world, citrus production yields 50% product and 50 % waste from approximately 100 to 120 million tons of citrus consumed annually worldwide.[5] Most of this biomass waste include peels, pulp, membrane residue, and seeds and ends up in municipal landfills after the juicing process is completed. The Rio Red Grapefruit is the most abundant variety of grapefruit grown in the lower Texas valley by the Texas Citrus Exchange facility, located in Mission, TX, USA. It is coveted for its abundant yield and sweet juice. To minimize grapefruit peel waste, the facility partially dries the peels, dips them in molasses, and produces a feedstock that acts as a filler for cattle with a low percentage of protein. There is an urgent need to reduce carbon emissions in today’s political climate, which creates an opportunity to further investigate the chemical properties and applications of this biomass. Recent research conducted at Texas A&M Kingsville has presented evidence of optimized value-added chemicals conducted via fast pyrolysis. The characterization of grapefruit peel waste has approximately half as much carbon and forty times as much oxygen as elemental crude oil, respectively. Hence, this presents an opportunity for analyzing and isolating oxygen-rich value-added chemicals. Using a CDS Analytical 5200 Series Pyroprobe with an Agilent 6890 GC, researchers’ empirically optimized values for phenols and furans, which are both valued-added and used as precursor materials with industrial and pharmaceutical applications. The primary goal of this research was to utilize the above mentioned optimized experimental parameters, simulate a biorefinery in Aspen Plus and SuperPro Designer, and create a profitability analysis for future biorefinery applications. It was found that more experimentation needs to be conducted in order to create a tailored stoichiometric equation specifically for Rio Red Grapefruit waste. A more accurate understanding of the chemical makeup of Rio Red Grapefruit will help in developing a better model that simulates compounds of interest more accurately. Initial economic assessment shows that citrus waste pyrolysis has a potential to be profitable with development of a more accurate and tailored numerical model