Techno-economic analysis of bioethanol production from wastepaper- A simulation study

Introduction: Biofuel also called as agrofuel is derived from biomass and may be in solid, liquid, or gaseous form. The use of waste biomass to generate energy can decrease waste management problems, pollution, greenhouse gaseous emissions and the use of fossil fuels. There is a huge potential for bioenergy obtained from waste to decrease the speed of global warming. As per a recent report, by the year 2019-2020 million tons of oil equivalents could be derived from biomass. Out of this, 46% is obtained from bio-wastes like farm waste, agriculture waste, municipal solid waste, and other biodegradable waste streams. Bioethanol is the top-most manufactured liquid fuel from biomass in the world. With the production of bioethanol crossing 100 billion liters in 2016, it is still believed to secure its prominence and cost-efficiency for many more decades to come. The main objective of this project is to do techno-economic analysis of bioethanol production from wastepaper using simulation software of SuperPro Designer. Methods: The design and simulation for the ethanol production was performed by using SuperPro designer. In this project an attempt has been made to produce bioethanol using acid hydrolysis and subsequent fermentation. Bioethanol is produced from wastepaper is developed and evaluated with SuperPro designer, a process simulator marketed by Intelligen, Inc. (Scotch Plains, NJ, USA). A process flow chart for the developed process illustrating the main sections namely the pretreatment, acid hydrolysis section, Fermentation section and the purification section. In this process the sulphuric acid hydrolysis was used to break the cellulose in to glucose. The fermentation was carried out using commercially available yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. After fermentation, the obtained product was distilled to get the bioethanol. Results & Discussions: The product was characterized to determine some properties such as refractive index, density, and turbidity. After the fermentation with S. cerevisiae 0.12-0.13 ml of bioethanol/ g of wastepaper was obtained. Further based on the study the Techno-economic analysis of bioethanol production from wastepaper was executed using the data obtained from the lab scale data. Based on the simulation for the plant the cost of raw Materials is the most important cost item (60% of the total) followed by the facility-dependent cost (24% of the total) which mainly accounts for the maintenance of the facility and the depreciation of the fixed capital investment. Based on study 1.6 million kg capacity of the plant was designed using SuperPro Designer. Unit production cost was found to be $1.72/kg and the annual bioethanol production revenue of 5,025,000 $/yr. The payback period of 7.7 years was achieved. Conclusions: The economic feasibility of lab scale processes depends on many parameters such as cost of raw materials, Major equipment and annual operating cost was analyzed. It can be concluded that wastepaper presents a great potential for bioethanol production. Keywords: Biofuels, Nonrenewable energy, Fermentation, Economic analysis References 1. Gubicza K, Nieves IU, Sagues WJ, Barta Z, Shanmugam KT, Ingram LO. Techno-economic analysis of ethanol production from sugarcane bagasse using a Liquefaction plus Simultaneous Saccharification and co-Fermentation process. Bioresource technology. 2016;208(1):42-48. 2. Gnansounou E, Dauriat A. Techno-economic analysis of lignocellulosic ethanol: a review. Bioresource technology. 2010; 101(13):4980-4991. 3. Kazi FK, Fortman JA, Anex RP, Hsu DD, Aden A, Dutta A, Kothandaraman G. Techno-economic comparison of process technologies for biochemical ethanol production from corn stover. Fuel. 2010 ;89(1):20-28