Importance of the use of Multi-Criteria Analysis tools to make decisions in biorefinery

COZ FERNANDEZ, ALBERTO ; ROJAS, CRISTOPHER; RUEDA RUIZ, CRISTINA; LEONARDI, RODRIGO JORGE; KHAWAM, JORGE; COMELLI, RAÚL NICOLÁS; LLANO, TAMARA

Rétino, Creta

Conferencia; 1st International Conference on Sustainable Chemical and Environmental Engineering; 2022

Design of Environmental Processes Laboratory School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Greece.

Biorefinery has been defined by the International Energy Agency as the sustainable processing of biomass into a spectrum of marketable products and energy (IEA, 2019). Lignocellulosic materials represent one of the most promising sources of renewable raw material under the bioeconomy, giving useful biobased chemicals and fuels, due to their low economic value and high availability (Coz et al., 2016). Lignocellulosic biomass has a complex structure consisting of three major fractions: cellulose (35%–50% dry weight), hemicelluloses (15%–35%), and lignin (10%–25%) (Huang et al., 2008); and all of them can be used in different applications. Depending on the final product, the conversion of lignocellulosic materials requires the separation or not of the material into its components. In addition, different processes as physico-chemical and biological methods can be used to produce the final products and to purify them. Due to the different alternatives, scales, products and so on, different tools for making decisions about the best options need to be studied. In this sense, Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) tools can be a good option in order to take into account not only the technical and economic aspects but also the environmental and social issues. MCA is a decision-making tool applied to a wide range of environmental management problems, including renewable energy planning and management (Vassoney et al., 2017). In addition, these tools can be used in all steps of the process in biorefinery applications. In this work, MCA has been used in different cases within the biorefinery concept.Four different cases have been studied. On the one hand, the evaluation of specific processes within the biorefinery process, in this case, the evaluation of different detoxification processes in a spent sulfite liquor have been studied considering that can be adapted to a wide variety of fermenting scenarios and using previous experimental data. Technical, economic, environmental, and social criteria have been studied. Total inhibitors, removal, phenolics removal, acetic acid removal, lignosulfonates removal, total sugar losses, fixed capital invested, manufacturing costs, waste toxicity, social acceptance, and employment have been chosen. Different scenarios with only technical criteria, technoeconomic criteria and adding the environmental and social aspects have been studied. Taking into account the previous results and using the results of modelling and simulation at industrial scale, three different alternatives of production of xylitol, furfural and ethanol have been studied. In this case, only technical and economic criteria have been considered because of the importance of the use of these alternatives in a real company. Total production, market price, fixed capital invested, manufacturing costs, and return period have been used. Sensitivity analysis was also studied. Xylitol is the best alternative almost in the whole weight range except for the market where ethanol becomes the best alternative when the weight of market is above 30 %. Finally, in order to increase the impact in small companies and rural areas, two different cases have been studies: (i) essential oil production from waste local biomass, and (ii) the production of lactic acid using different regional feedstocks and analysing three purification strategies.