Techno-economic analysis (TEA) of low-moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) pretreatment method for corn stover

Abstract

Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) plays an important role in assessing economic performance and potential market acceptance for new technologies. Previous work has shown that the construction and operation of a cellulosic bioethanol plant can be very expensive. One of the largest cost categories is pretreatment processing. The purpose of this study was to conduct a detailed cost analysis to assess low moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) pretreatment process at the commercial-scale, and to estimate the breakeven point in large-scale production. In this study, capital expenses, including annualized purchase and installation fees, and annual operating costs associated with each unit operation were determined. This research compared the unit cost per year between different scales of the LMAA process, and focused on exploring the optimal costeffective point for this pretreatment method for bioethanol production.

The costs of sugar production from different feedstocks and processing technologies

“…The additional extraction column and solvent recovery facilities resulted in a < 1% increase in the total fixed cost of the biorefinery but improved sugar recovery by 10% . The lower fixed capital costs reported by Yang and Rosentrater might result from the Lang factor and estimations of other indirect capital investments . The ionic liquid pretreatment has higher fixed capital costs than other pretreatments because of the special storage requirements for ionic liquids …”

“…Based on the study of Davis et al ., the sugar production cost also decreases from $0.19/kg sugar to $0.11/kg sugar when the enzyme is produced on site . The sugar production cost with the LMAA (low‐moisture anhydrous ammonia) pretreatment was estimated to be $0.54/kg by Yang and Rosentrater . Baral and Shah reported a high sugar production cost using a ionic liquid based process ($2.84/kg) due to the high costs of the ionic liquid and anti‐solvent, despite recycling of the solvent …”

Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) of Different Pretreatment and Product Separation Technologies for Cellulosic Butanol Production from Oil Palm Frond

“…By contrast, SAA pretreatment simulated in this study used a high solid-to-liquid (S/L) ratio, which led to the high material cost (see Figure 6), and eventually high butanol production cost. The butanol production cost recorded by LMAA pretreatment model, although the lowest compared to those of other simulated models, was higher than ethanol production cost from LMAA-treated corn stover reported by [60], which was ~1.30/L. It is known that butanol fermentation has lower productivity than ethanol fermentation.…”

Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of corn biorefinery and bioprocessing operation

“…Most TEA for the corn stover bioprocess discussed the feasibility for new method application, which was different from TEA used to discuss the industrial efficiency for corn-based ethanol processes. Low-moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) pretreatment for corn stover fermentation used TEA to conduct a cost analysis and estimate the breakeven point in largescale production, which showed the lowest unit cost obtained from this method was $3.86/gal, and was higher than 2015 gasoline prices (Yang & Rosentrater, 2015). Corn stover fungal fermentation was also attempted in recent studies.…”

“…During recent research, industrial simulation from SuperPro Designer was widely used in the bioethanol process and related industrial processes, which included corn-based ethanol, lignocellulosic ethanol and oil extraction Yang & Rosentrater, 2015;. USDA has built a basic simulation model for corn-based ethanol process, and more details are available in and .…”