Techno-economic uncertainty analysis of wet waste-to-biocrude via hydrothermal liquefaction

Li, Shuyun; Jiang, Yuan; Snowden-Swan, Lesley; Askander, Jalal A.; Schmidt, Andrew J.; Billing, Justin M.

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.116340

Cited by 44 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The recovery of organic contents is observed half around. This can be explained by the uncertainty due to the missing gas, mass not detected during the separation and the sampling procedures, and evaporation of volatiles during the drying and solvent evaporation process (Li et al, 2021). During the separation procedures adopted coherently with the literature, when an organic solvent was adopted to recover the biocrude, a step of evaporation of the solvent is always needed to collect biocrude mass.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative investigation on the value-added products obtained from continuous and batch hydrothermal liquefaction of sewage sludge

Fan

Prestigiacomo

Gong

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) can be considered a promising route for the energy valorisation of waste sewage sludge (SS). However, not much information is available on continuous flow processing. In this study, the mixed SS was subjected to HTL at 350°C for 8 min in a continuous reactor with loadings of 10 wt% in the feed flow. The results show that the mass recovery reached 88%, with a biocrude yield of 30.8 wt% (3.9 wt% N content). The recovered biocrude yields are highly dependent on the selection of the recovery solvent for extraction, and dichloromethane can contribute an additional 3.1 wt% biocrude from aqueous phase, acetone can extract some pyrrole derivatives into the trapped phases. Comparable results were also achieved by performing batch reactions under the same conditions: a slightly higher biocrude yield (33.1 wt%) with an N content of 4.3 wt%. The higher N content observed in the biocrude from the batch process indicates that interactions and chelation between intermediates are enhanced during heating up and cooling period, which lead to more N-containing compounds.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative investigation on the value-added products obtained from continuous and batch hydrothermal liquefaction of sewage sludge

Fan

Prestigiacomo

Gong

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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“…Energy and capital costs are not completely isolated from one another, so the best-scenario analysis may overestimate the results of economic evaluation (Briggs, 1999). Finally, the application of some reasonable probability assumptions for model inputs could reduce the uncertainty in the predictions (Li et al, 2021).…”

Section: Limitations Of the Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodology for assessing the maximum potential impact of separations opportunities in industrial processes

Liu

Dempsey²,

Li³

et al. 2022

Front. Sustain.

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Separation technologies currently used in U.S. manufacturing industries are estimated to account for more than 20% of plant energy consumption. However, accurately determining the impact of new separation technology solutions can sometimes be difficult, especially when evaluating a slate of new candidate separation technologies, each of which has its own separation performance, energy demand, and capital cost. In these cases, a typical approach is to assess each new separation technology by collecting performance and cost information and then using that information to develop a techno-economic analysis to identify overall benefits. While this approach is thorough, it can be time consuming and can hinder reaching a critical understanding of the potential of a given separation challenge, especially when there is no known solution. To address these issues, we developed an assessment methodology, using industrial screening processes, that can be used to better understand the potential impacts of addressing a given separation challenge. This paper presents an overview of our separation challenge stream assessment methodology. The methodology involves defining an “ideal” separator and deriving the associated minimum separation energy. The “ideal” separator represents the most optimistic outlook of a given opportunity so the maximum impact from existing and not-yet-developed solutions can be assessed. Using established biorefinery models, we applied the methodology to 10 different separation challenge streams from two different biomass conversion platforms to identify the type of information that can be obtained. Three of the ten challenge streams assessed had maximum possible cost savings predictions >20%, and associated reductions in process energy carbon intensity ranging from 0 to 54%. Two streams had cost and energy savings potential that were < 5%. Some of the opportunity drivers from the various assessments include higher product yields, reduction or elimination of downstream equipment, new co-products, and cost savings associated with raw materials and energy consumption. The information from these assessments can help guide the selection or development of new separation technology solutions based on the various potential factors that drive the projected benefits.

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“…3 Despite the prevalence of waste, it is a distributed resource that must be transported to a centralized location for processing to achieve sufficient scale to be economically viable. 17 The key parameter is waste volume per area, with greater waste generation densities permitting operation of HTL at scales that favor attractive economics without increasing transportation costs to prohibitive levels. Most economic analyses of HTL [18][19][20] are based on a scale of approximately 100 dry tons per day.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergent chemical behavior in mixed food and lignocellulosic green waste hydrothermal liquefaction

LeClerc

Page²,

Tompsett

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a promising strategy for conversion of energy-dense waste streams to fuels. Mixed-feed HTL aggregates multiple feed streams to achieve greater scales that capitalize on local resources, hence lowering costs. The potential for new pathways and products upon feedstock blending becomes a compounding level of complexity when unlocking emergent chemistries. Food and green waste streams were evaluated under HTL conditions (300 °C, 1 hr) to understand the effect of feed molecular composition on product distributions and mechanisms. Thousands of emergent chemical compounds were detected via FT-ICR MS, ultimately leading to the emergence of two dominant outcomes. First, the presence of small amounts of food waste into green waste results in substantial decarboxylation and subsequent polymerization to biocrude then chars. Second, in the other limit, small amounts of green waste promote capping of oxygenates into the biodiesel range, such as with the emergence of fatty acid methyl esters.

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Techno-economic uncertainty analysis of wet waste-to-biocrude via hydrothermal liquefaction

Cited by 44 publications

References 35 publications

Comparative investigation on the value-added products obtained from continuous and batch hydrothermal liquefaction of sewage sludge

Comparative investigation on the value-added products obtained from continuous and batch hydrothermal liquefaction of sewage sludge

Methodology for assessing the maximum potential impact of separations opportunities in industrial processes

Emergent chemical behavior in mixed food and lignocellulosic green waste hydrothermal liquefaction

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