Ectoine Production from Biogas in Waste Treatment Facilities: A Techno-Economic and Sensitivity Analysis.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Perez V
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8715504 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Food waste is a major constituent in municipal solid wastes and its accumulation or disposal of in landfills is problematic, causing environmental issues. Herein, a techno-economic study is carried out on the potential of biogas production from different types of food waste generated locally. The biogas production tests were at two-time sets; 24-h and 21-day intervals and results showed a good correlation between those two-time sets. Thus, we propose to use the 24-h time set to evaluate feedstock fermentation capacity that is intended for longer periods. Our approach could potentially be applied within industry as the 24-h test can give a good indication of the potential substrate gas production as a quick test that saves time, with minimal effort required. Furthermore, polynomial models were used to predict the production of total gas and methane during the fermentation periods, which showed good matching between the theoretical and practical values with a coefficient of determination R2 = 0.99. At day 21, the accumulative gas production value from mixed food waste samples was 1550 mL per 1 g of dry matter. An economic evaluation was conducted and showed that the case study breaks-even at $0.2944 per cubic metre. Any prices above this rate yield a positive net present value (NPV); at $0.39/m3 a discounted payback period of six years and a positive NPV of $3108 were calculated. If waste management fee savings are to be incorporated, the total savings would be higher, increasing annual cash flows and enhancing financial results. This economic evaluation serves as a preliminary guide to assess the economic feasibility based on the fluctuating value of methane when producing biogas from food waste via anaerobic digestion, thus could help biogas project developers investigate similar scale scenarios .
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Project description:The purpose of this research is to demonstrate through a techno-economic assessment that aniline can be industrially produced using a profitable and inherently safer process than the ones currently employed. The aniline production process was designed using process simulation software. From this, the mass and energy balances were determined, the equipment sizing was performed and the net present value (NPV) was calculated to be USD 93.5 million. Additionally, a heat integration analysis was carried out in order to improve process profitability, obtaining a new NPV of USD 97.5 million. The economic sensitivity analysis showed that the process could withstand fixed capital investment changes of up to +89%, weighted average cost of capital changes between 16-24% and a decrease in cyclohexylamine demand of up to 44%. The conceptual design is still profitable when aniline price is varied in a range of 1224-1840 $/t and phenol cost in a range of 815-1178 $/t.
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Project description:BackgroundAlcohol-to-jet (ATJ) is one of the technical feasible biofuel technologies. It produces jet fuel from sugary, starchy, and lignocellulosic biomass, such as sugarcane, corn grain, and switchgrass, via fermentation of sugars to ethanol or other alcohols. This study assesses the ATJ biofuel production pathway for these three biomass feedstocks, and advances existing techno-economic analyses of biofuels in three ways. First, we incorporate technical uncertainty for all by-products and co-products though statistical linkages between conversion efficiencies and input and output levels. Second, future price uncertainty is based on case-by-case time-series estimation, and a local sensitivity analysis is conducted with respect to each uncertain variable. Third, breakeven price distributions are developed to communicate the inherent uncertainty in breakeven price. This research also considers uncertainties in utility input requirements, fuel and by-product outputs, as well as price uncertainties for all major inputs, products, and co-products. All analyses are done from the perspective of a private firm.ResultsThe stochastic dominance results of net present values (NPV) and breakeven price distributions show that sugarcane is the lowest cost feedstock over the entire range of uncertainty with the least risks, followed by corn grain and switchgrass, with the mean breakeven jet fuel prices being $0.96/L ($3.65/gal), $1.01/L ($3.84/gal), and $1.38/L ($5.21/gal), respectively. The variation of revenues from by-products in corn grain pathway can significantly impact its profitability. Sensitivity analyses show that technical uncertainty significantly impacts breakeven price and NPV distributions.ConclusionsTechnical uncertainty is critical in determining the economic performance of the ATJ fuel pathway. Technical uncertainty needs to be considered in future economic analyses. The variation of revenues from by-products plays a significant role in profitability. With the distribution of breakeven prices, potential investors can apply whatever risk preferences they like to determine an appropriate bid or breakeven price that matches their risk profile.
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Project description:To satisfy the growing demand for limonene, novel pathways for microbial production of limonene have been sought. A techno-economic analysis is carried out for one such process producing limonene from sugar at an industrial plant scale to assess potential economic viability. A conceptual design of the process is developed, in which a gas stripping-solvent scrubbing method is chosen for recovering limonene from bioreactors based on consideration of payback time and process operability. Minimum limonene selling prices are estimated over a range of fermentation productivity based on the calculation of net present value using discounted cash flow method. Under 45% of the maximum theoretical yield, the selling price reaches $19.9/kg, which could be competitive with established production processes when fermentation productivity is above 0.7 kg/(m3·h). Reduction of cost could be realised through improvement of microbial strains, utilisation of cheaper feedstocks, reduction in capital investment and strategic business planning.
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Project description:Sorption-enhanced gasification has been shown as a viable low-carbon alternative to conventional gasification, as it enables simultaneous gasification with in-situ CO2 capture to enhance the production of H2. CaO-based sorbents have been a preferred choice due to their low cost and wide availability. This work assessed the technical and economic viability of sorption-enhanced gasification using natural limestone, doped limestone with seawater and dolomite. The techno-economic performance of the sorption-enhanced gasification using different sorbents was compared with that of conventional gasification. Regarding the thermodynamic performance, dolomite presented the worst performance (46.0% of H2 production efficiency), whereas doped limestone presented the highest H2 production efficiency (50.0%). The use of dolomite also resulted in the highest levelised cost of hydrogen (5.4 €/kg against 5.0 €/kg when limestone is used as sorbent), which translates into a CO2 avoided cost ranging between 114.9 €/tCO2 (natural limestone) and 130.4 €/tCO2 (dolomite). Although doped limestone has shown a CO2 avoided cost of 117.7 €/tCO2, this can be reduced if the production cost of doped limestone is lower than 42.6 €/t. The production costs of new sorbents for CO2 capture and H2 production need to be similar to that of natural limestone to become an attractive alternative to natural limestone.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13399-022-02926-y.
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Project description:BackgroundThe economic viability of hydrodeoxygenation process using Camelina, Carinata and Jatropha feedstocks for aviation biofuel production was evaluated for two product profiles: (i) maximum diesel production and (ii) maximum jet fuel production (HRJ).ResultsDeterministic analysis of Camelina and Carinata diesel facilities returned positive NPVs and IRRs of 25 and 18%, respectively. Stochastic analysis suggested that the probabilities of positive NPVs were 75, 59 and 15%, respectively, for Camelina, Carinata and Jatropha diesel plants. Jet fuel facilities presented probabilities of loss of 98, 99 and 100% for Camelina, Carinata and Jatropha scenarios, respectively. Sensitivity analysis determined that financial performance was majorly influenced by feedstock and fuel prices. Categories of subsidies to enhance the attractiveness of the projects were studied.ConclusionsCamelina, Carinata and Jatropha plants targeting HRJ required incentives of 0.31, 0.39 and 0.61 US$/L of biofuel produced, respectively, to reduce the probabilities of loss to approximately 30%.
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Project description:Nutrient pollution of waterbodies is a major worldwide water quality problem. Excessive use and discharge of nutrients can lead to eutrophication and algal blooms in fresh and marine waters, resulting in environmental problems associated with hypoxia, public health issues related to the release of toxins and freshwater scarcity. A promising option to address this problem is the recovery of nutrient releases prior to being discharged into the environment. Driven by the sustainable materials management concept, the COW2NUTRIENT (Cattle Organic Waste to NUTRIent and ENergy Technologies) framework is developed for the techno-economic evaluation and selection of nutrient recovery systems at livestock facilities. Environmental vulnerability to nutrient pollution determined through a geographic information system (GIS)-based model and techno-economic information of different state-of-the-art nutrient management technologies are combined in a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) model, resulting in the selection and economic analysis of the most suitable process for each studied livestock facility. This framework has been employed for studying the implementation of sustainable phosphorus management systems at 2,217 livestock facilities in the Great Lakes area, resulting in capital expenses of 2.5 billion USD if only phosphorus recovery technologies are installed, and up to 5.2 billion USD if nutrient management is combined with biogas and power production. However, considering potential economic incentives for the recovery of phosphorus, net revenues up to 230 million USD per year can be achieved. Therefore, the framework presented reveals the potential of implementing nutrient management systems at regional scale for the abatement of phosphorus releases from livestock facilities.
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Project description:Protoplast fusion is one of the most reliable methods of introducing desirable traits into industrially-promising fungal strains. It harnesses the entire genomic repertoire of fusing microorganisms by routing the natural barrier and genetic incompatibility between them. In the present study, the axenic culture of a thermo-halotolerant strain of Aspergillus candidus (Asp-C) produced an anti-leukemic L-asparaginase (L-ASNase) while a xylan-degrading strain of Aspergillus sydowii (Asp-S) produced the acrylamide-reduction type. Protoplast fusion of the wild strains generated Fusant-06 with improved anti-leukemic and acrylamide reduction potentials. Submerged fed-batch fermentation was preferred to batch and continuous modes on the basis of impressive techno-economics. Fusant-06 L-ASNase was purified by PEG/Na+ citrate aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) to 146.21-fold and global sensitivity analysis report revealed polymer molecular weight and citrate concentration as major determinants of yield and purification factor, respectively. The enzyme was characterized by molecular weight, amino acid profile, activity and stability to chemical agents. Michaelis-Menten kinetics, evaluated under optimum conditions gave Km, Vmax, Kcat, and Kcat/Km as 6.67 × 10-5 M, 1666.67 µmolmin-1 mg-1 protein, 3.88 × 104 min-1 and 5.81 × 108 M-1.min-1 respectively. In-vitro cytotoxicity of HL-60 cell lines by Fusant-06 L-ASNase improved significantly from their respective wild strains. Stability of Fusant-06 L-ASNase over a wide range of pH, temperature and NaCl concentration, coupled with its micromolar Km value, confers commercial and therapeutic value on the product. Free-radical scavenging and acrylamide reduction activities were intermediate and the conferred thermo-halo-stability could be exploited for sustainable clinical and food industry applications.
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