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. 2021 Feb 17;6(8):5627-5641.
doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c06088. eCollection 2021 Mar 2.

Technical Evaluation of a Levulinic Acid Plant Based on Biomass Transformation under Techno-Economic and Exergy Analyses

Samir Isaac Meramo Hurtado  1 , Plinio Puello  2 , Amaury Cabarcas  3
Affiliations

Technical Evaluation of a Levulinic Acid Plant Based on Biomass Transformation under Techno-Economic and Exergy Analyses

Samir Isaac Meramo Hurtado et al. ACS Omega. .

Abstract

Levulinic acid (LA) recently has attracted much attention as a promising biorefinery platform due to its potential to be economical and sustainable. This paper addresses technical, techno-economic, and exergetic analyses of an industrial LA production via acid-catalyzed dehydration. The process was simulated through Aspen Plus, considering a processing capacity of 15,175.60 kg/h of banana empty fruit bunches. The global productivity yield was 25.56%, producing 3883.13 kg/h of LA. The techno-economic analysis evidenced that this process may be an attractive alternative for biomass valorization, considering the obtained financial results. This process's total production cost was 0.178 $USD per kilogram of biomass and a total annualized cost of $USD 29,163,638.95. Exergy analysis revealed that this process had an irreversibility rate of 1.48 × 105 MJ/h. The pretreatment stage presented the lowest exergetic efficiency. Globally, the exergy efficiency was 53.76%, which is within the reported results for analogous biomass transformation processes.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Simulation process flowsheet for the pretreatment unit in the LA production process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Simulation process flowsheet for an acid-catalyzed dehydration unit in the LA production process.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Simulation process flowsheet for the purification unit in the LA production process.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Performance results of the evaluated technical indicators of the LA production process.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Cumulative NPV graphic for the LA production process.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Exergy analysis outcomes per processing unit.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Hierarchy diagram of the LA production process.
Figure 8
Figure 8
General overview of exergy analysis of a chemical process.
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