Economic feasibility and environmental life cycle assessment of ethanol production from lignocellulosic feedstock in Pacific Northwest U.S.

Bioethanol produced from the lignocellulosic feedstock is a potential alternative to fossil fuels in transportation sector and can help in reducing environmental burdens. Straw produced from perennial ryegrass (PR) and wheat is a non-food, cellulosic biomass resource available in abundance in the Pacific Northwest U.S. The aim of this study was to evaluate the economic viability and to estimate the energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during life cycle of ethanol production from PR and wheat straw. Economic analysis of ethanol production on commercial scale was performed using engineering process model of ethanol production plant with processing capacity of 250 000 metric tons of feedstock/year, simulated in SuperPro designer. Ethanol yields for PR and wheat straw were estimated 250.7 and 316.2 l/dry metric ton biomass, respectively, with annual ethanol production capacity of 58.3 and 73.5 × 106 l, respectively. Corresponding production costs of ethanol from PR and wheat straw were projected to b...

[1]  Jay J. Cheng,et al.  Dilute acid pretreatment of rye straw and bermudagrass for ethanol production. , 2005, Bioresource technology.

[2]  J. Kwiatkowski,et al.  Modeling the process and costs of fuel ethanol production by the corn dry-grind process , 2006 .

[3]  Heather L MacLean,et al.  Life cycle assessment of switchgrass- and corn stover-derived ethanol-fueled automobiles. , 2005, Environmental science & technology.

[4]  Deepak Kumar,et al.  Life cycle assessment of energy and GHG emissions during ethanol production from grass straws using various pretreatment processes , 2012, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

[5]  Bruce E. Dale,et al.  Thinking clearly about biofuels: ending the irrelevant ‘net energy’ debate and developing better performance metrics for alternative fuels , 2007 .

[6]  G. Lidén,et al.  Modeling simultaneous glucose and xylose uptake in Saccharomyces cerevisiae from kinetics and gene expression of sugar transporters , 2008, Bioprocess and biosystems engineering.

[7]  Nicholas E. Korres,et al.  Key issues in life cycle assessment of ethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass: Challenges and perspectives. , 2010, Bioresource technology.

[8]  G. Murthy,et al.  Life cycle analysis of algae biodiesel , 2010 .

[9]  Akwasi A. Boateng,et al.  Assessment of straw biomass feedstock resources in the Pacific Northwest. , 2008 .

[10]  David D. Hsu,et al.  Techno-economic comparison of process technologies for biochemical ethanol production from corn stover , 2010 .

[11]  May Wu,et al.  Energy and Emission Benefits of Alternative Transportation Liquid Fuels Derived from Switchgrass: A Fuel Life Cycle Assessment , 2006, Biotechnology progress.

[12]  Ruihong Zhang,et al.  Kinetic modeling for enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated creeping wild ryegrass , 2009, Biotechnology and bioengineering.

[13]  K. Kadam,et al.  Development and Validation of a Kinetic Model for Enzymatic Saccharification of Lignocellulosic Biomass , 2004, Biotechnology progress.

[14]  Vijay Singh,et al.  Enzymatic corn wet milling: engineering process and cost model , 2009, Biotechnology for biofuels.

[15]  B. Hahn-Hägerdal,et al.  Towards industrial pentose-fermenting yeast strains , 2007, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.

[16]  Hendrik H. Beeftink,et al.  Comparison of dilute mineral and organic acid pretreatment for enzymatic hydrolysis of wheat straw , 2009 .

[17]  R. Elander,et al.  Process and economic analysis of pretreatment technologies. , 2005, Bioresource technology.

[18]  B. Gabrielle,et al.  Life cycle assessment of biofuels from Jatropha curcas in West Africa: a field study , 2009 .

[19]  Ganti S. Murthy,et al.  Pretreatments and enzymatic hydrolysis of grass straws for ethanol production in the Pacific Northwest U.S. , 2011 .

[20]  Gjalt Huppes,et al.  An energy analysis of ethanol from cellulosic feedstock-Corn stover , 2009 .

[21]  Edgard Gnansounou,et al.  Energy and greenhouse gas balances of biofuels: biases induced by LCA modelling choices , 2008 .

[22]  K. Paustian,et al.  Energy and Environmental Aspects of Using Corn Stover for Fuel Ethanol , 2003 .

[23]  Heather L. MacLean,et al.  The contribution of enzymes and process chemicals to the life cycle of ethanol , 2009 .

[24]  Heather L MacLean,et al.  Life cycle evaluation of emerging lignocellulosic ethanol conversion technologies. , 2010, Bioresource technology.

[25]  Charles E Wyman,et al.  What is (and is not) vital to advancing cellulosic ethanol. , 2007, Trends in biotechnology.

[26]  Lee R. Lynd,et al.  Coproduction of ethanol and power from switchgrass , 2009 .

[27]  G. Zacchi,et al.  Techno-economic evaluation of stillage treatment with anaerobic digestion in a softwood-to-ethanol process , 2010, Biotechnology for biofuels.

[28]  Ye Sun,et al.  Hydrolysis of lignocellulosic materials for ethanol production: a review. , 2002, Bioresource technology.

[29]  Seungdo Kim,et al.  Allocation procedure in ethanol production system from corn grain i. system expansion , 2002 .

[30]  Hung Lee,et al.  Genetic improvement of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for xylose fermentation. , 2007, Biotechnology advances.

[31]  Jay H. Lee,et al.  Modeling cellulase kinetics on lignocellulosic substrates. , 2009, Biotechnology advances.

[32]  Bruce E Dale,et al.  'Cradle-to-grave' assessment of existing lignocellulose pretreatment technologies. , 2009, Current opinion in biotechnology.

[33]  Roydon Andrew Fraser,et al.  The relative mass-energy-economic (RMEE) method for system boundary selection Part 1: A means to systematically and quantitatively select LCA boundaries , 2000 .

[34]  Mohammad J. Taherzadeh,et al.  ENZYMATIC-BASED HYDROLYSIS PROCESSES FOR ETHANOL , 2007 .

[35]  A. Turhollow,et al.  Techno-economic analysis of using corn stover to supply heat and power to a corn ethanol plant - Part 1: Cost of feedstock supply logistics , 2010 .

[36]  Gerald Whittaker,et al.  Conservation Practices in Western Oregon Perennial Grass Seed Systems : I . Impacts of Direct Seeding and Maximal Residue Management on Production , 2005 .

[37]  C. Wyman,et al.  Features of promising technologies for pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass. , 2005, Bioresource technology.

[38]  R. Perrin,et al.  Net energy of cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[39]  Surendra Prasad,et al.  Biomass - fired steam power co - generation system: a theoretical study , 1995 .

[40]  G. Murthy,et al.  Impact of pretreatment and downstream processing technologies on economics and energy in cellulosic ethanol production , 2011, Biotechnology for biofuels.

[41]  A. Turhollow,et al.  Techno-economic analysis of using corn stover to supply heat and power to a corn ethanol plant – Part 2: Cost of heat and power generation systems , 2010 .

[42]  Gjalt Huppes,et al.  Allocation issues in LCA methodology: a case study of corn stover-based fuel ethanol , 2009 .