Process simulation–based scenario analysis of scaled-up bioethanol production from water hyacinth

Abstract

Water hyacinth (WH) is an aquatic weed with an experimentally proven potential as a feedstock for bioethanol production. Unlike other bioethanol feedstocks, water hyacinth has no requirement for land use and resource consumption for cultivation. This study evaluates scaled-up bioethanol production process routes, modelled using the Aspen Plus process simulator to analyse the process performance of water hyacinth as a bioethanol feedstock. Four process scenarios are developed by combining two different feedstock pretreatment methods (i.e., alkali pretreatment and diluted acid pretreatment) and bioethanol dehydration techniques (i.e., azeotropic distillation and extractive distillation). Mass and energy flows of the four scenarios are comparatively analysed. Results show that the alkali pretreatment method provides a higher bioethanol yield (i.e., 254 L/tonne-WH) compared with the dilute acid pretreatment method (i.e., 210 L/tonne-WH). In addition, the process route combining alkali pretreatment and extractive dehydration techniques indicates the least process energy consumption of 45,310 MJ/m 3 of bioethanol. The process energy flow analysis evaluates two energy sustainability indicators, i.e., net energy gain and renewability factor, with further interpretation of variation effects of the key process parameters through a sensitivity analysis. The feasible ways of utilising water hyacinth as a fuel-grade bioethanol feedstock for industrial-scale production are discussed. Graphical Abstract Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13399-023-03891-w.

Potential of Corn Cob Sustainable Valorization to Fuel-Grade Bioethanol: A Simulation Study Using Superpro Designer®

“…The desired specification of fuel-grade bioethanol was 1000 L with a concentration of surpassing 99.5%-wt (density of 790 kg/m 3 ). The capacity of bioethanol 38) . There were four sections in corn cob fermentation to produce bioethanol, namely pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation, and downstream processing 39) , as illustrated in the block flow diagram in Figure 2.…”