Journal
BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOENGINEERING
Volume 109, Issue 4, Pages 1083-1087Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/bit.24370
Keywords
cellulase; process model; techno-economic analysis; biofuels; enzyme costs; enzyme loading
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Funding
- U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research [DE-AC02-05CH11231]
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Statoil
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With the aim of understanding the contribution of enzymes to the cost of lignocellulosic biofuels, we constructed a techno-economic model for the production of fungal cellulases. We found that the cost of producing enzymes was much higher than that commonly assumed in the literature. For example, the cost contribution of enzymes to ethanol produced by the conversion of corn stover was found to be $0.68/gal if the sugars in the biomass could be converted at maximum theoretical yields, and $1.47/gal if the yields were based on saccharification and fermentation yields that have been previously reported in the scientific literature. We performed a sensitivity analysis to study the effect of feedstock prices and fermentation times on the cost contribution of enzymes to ethanol price. We conclude that a significant effort is still required to lower the contribution of enzymes to biofuel production costs. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2012; 109:10831087. (c) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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