Assessment of biorefinery process intensification by ultrasound technology

In the present work, on the basis of literature data, correlations for ultrasound-assisted dissolution of lignin and hemicelluloses from lignocellulosic raw material were defined in Aspen Plus(A (R)) as function of applied power and duration of the ultrasound treatment. The dissolution yield of these biomass components was represented against the applied acoustic energy, taking into account the volume of solvent-solid treated in each case, making possible the calculation of ultrasonic power consumption in a simulated biorefinery pretreatment process. The proposed ultrasound-assisted process was techno-economically evaluated in terms of process yield and utility requirements. Furthermore, energy and exergy analyses were performed in order to assess the profitability of the simulated ultrasound-assisted biomass fractionation processes.