Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 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.

PubMed Disclaimer

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.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Chen H.Lignocellulose Biorefinery Product Engineering; Elsevier, 2015.
    1. Ahlkvist J.Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels, Umea University, 2010, https://doi.org/10.1039/c004654j.
    1. Frankiewicz A. Overview of 4-Oxopentanoic (Levulinic) Acid Production Methods - an Intermediate in the Biorefinery Process. Chemik 2016, 70, 206–208.
    1. Antonetti C.; Licursi D.; Fulignati S.; Valentini G.; Raspolli Galletti A. New Frontiers in the Catalytic Synthesis of Levulinic Acid: From Sugars to Raw and Waste Biomass as Starting Feedstock. Catalysts 2016, 6, 196. 10.3390/catal6120196. - DOI
    1. Runge T.; Zhang C. Two-Stage Acid-Catalyzed Conversion of Carbohydrates into Levulinic Acid. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2012, 51, 3265–3270. 10.1021/ie2021619. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources