Technoeconomic Study of Biobutanol AB Production. 2. Process Design

In this paper, a process for the production of biobutanol from corn stover is synthesized including the use of novel technologies such as pervaporation and acetone butanol (AB) fermentation to improve the yield from biomass and reduce byproducts. The process consists of four sections: pretreatment, hydrolysis, fermentation pervaporation, and product purification. We use the experimental results in part 1 of this series [Malmierca et al. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.6b02943] to determine the yield of the pretreatment and hydrolysis stages. A hybrid simulation using black box models in Excel, based on experimental data, and ChemCAD, has been performed. Using the results a detail economic evaluation of the process has been carried out to evaluate the techno economic feasibility of this process. The results show an investment of 186 M for 27 kt/y of butanol and a butanol production cost of 1.09 /kg which makes second generation butanol more competitive versus second generation ethanol and fossil -based fuels.