Automated targeting for the synthesis of an integrated biorefinery

Biorefineries are processing facilities that convert biomass into value-added products such as biofuels, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. Integrated biorefineries which consist of various processing facilities (e.g., digestion, fermentation, pyrolysis, gasification, etc.) have been proposed in order to enhance the energy efficiency and material recovery. This work presents an optimisation-based, automated targeting procedure to determine the maximum biofuel production and revenue levels in an integrated biorefinery. The approach is based on pinch analysis and allows targets to be determined prior to detailed design of the biorefinery flowsheet. A hypothetical case study is shown to illustrate the proposed approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.