Systematic design of separation process for bioethanol production from corn stover
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(2020) 2:10
BMC Chemical Engineering
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Systematic design of separation process for bioethanol production from corn stover Suksun Amornraksa1* , Ittipat Subsaipin1, Lida Simasatitkul2 and Suttichai Assabumrungrat3
Abstract Separation process is very crucial in bioethanol production as it consumes the highest energy in the process. Unlike other works, this research systematically designed a suitable separation process for bioethanol production from corn stover by using thermodynamic insight. Two separation processes, i.e., extractive distillation (case 2) and pervaporation (case 3), were developed and compared with conventional molecular sieve (case 1). Process design and simulation were done by using Aspen Plus program. The process evaluation was done not only in terms of energy consumption and process economics but also in terms of environmental impacts. It was revealed that pervaporation is the best process in all aspects. Its energy consumption and carbon footprint are 60.8 and 68.34% lower than case 1, respectively. Its capital and production costs are also the lowest, 37.0 and 9.88% lower than case 1. Keywords: Bioethanol, Corn stover, Process design, Economic analysis, Life cycle analysis
Introduction Bioethanol (C2H5OH) has been well-accepted and used in the transportation sector worldwide. The firstgeneration bioethanol produced from food crops was found to be a suitable replacement for gasoline. It can be fully or partially blended with gasoline effectively. However, due to some considerable concern about competition with food crops [1], the second-generation bioethanol produced from biomass such as agricultural wastes has gained much more attention in recent years. Lignocellulosic biomass has a great potential to be used as feedstock for bioethanol production as it is cheap, abundant, sustainable, and does not compete with food [2]. There are enormous lignocellulosic biomass available around the world, especially corn stover. Each year corn stover is produced in vast quantities in many countries. The management of this agricultural waste is essential. Corn stover could be an excellent candidate for * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Chemical and Process Engineering Program, The Sirindhorn International Thai-German Graduate School of Engineering (TGGS), King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok 10800, Thailand Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
lignocellulosic resources for large scale ethanol production [3]. Generally, the bioethanol production process from lignocellulosic biomass consists of four main steps, which are pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation, and separation [4]. The pretreatment step is used to remove lignin and alter cellulose structures by increasing cellulose accessibility for a further hydrolysis process. During this step, hemicellulose inside the biomass is completely hydrolyzed into sugars, which can be directly converted to ethanol in a later fermentation process [5, 6]. Furfural an
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