University of Campinas (UNICAMP), School of Chemical Engineering, Laboratory of Optimization, Design and Advanced Control (LOPCA), Campinas, SP, Brazil.
Valmet, Araucária, PR, Brazil.
Bioresour Technol. 2018 Feb;250:345-354. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.11.022. Epub 2017 Nov 10.
This work proposes a strategy, from a process design standpoint, for pulp companies to enter the Brazilian ethanol market. The flexible plant converts eucalyptus-derived glucose to either ethanol or butanol (according to market conditions) and xylose only to butanol production. Depending on the biomass pretreatment technology, Monte Carlo simulations showed that the Net Present Value (NPV) of the flexible plant increases by 20-28% in relation to an ethanol-dedicated plant. Whereas the lower costs of the steam explosion technology turns the investment more attractive (NPV = 184 MMUSD; IRR = 29%), the organosolv technology provides better flexibility to the plant. This work also shows that excessive power consumption is a hurdle in the development of flash fermentation technology chosen for the flexible plant. These results indicate that conventional batch fermentation is preferable if the enzymatic hydrolysis step operates with solids loading up to 20 wt%.
本工作从工艺设计角度为制浆厂提出了进入巴西乙醇市场的策略。该柔性工厂可将源自桉树的葡萄糖转化为乙醇或丁醇（根据市场情况而定），且仅将木糖转化为丁醇生产。根据生物质预处理技术的不同，蒙特卡罗模拟表明，与专用乙醇工厂相比，柔性工厂的净现值（NPV）增加了 20-28%。虽然蒸汽爆破技术的较低成本使投资更具吸引力（NPV=1.84 亿美元；IRR=29%），但有机溶剂技术为工厂提供了更好的灵活性。本工作还表明，对于为柔性工厂选择的闪蒸发酵技术，过高的电力消耗是一个障碍。这些结果表明，如果酶解步骤的固体负荷高达 20wt%，则常规批式发酵是优选的。
