Chapter 2 - Technoeconomic analysis of biofuel production with special reference to a downstream process

Abstract

Slowing down the global climate change and earth’s sustainable management are critical in the present scenario, and they could be made possible through partial replacement of fossil fuels in the transport sector with biofuels such as bio-EtOH and biodiesel. However, the cost and the purity of the biofuels are the major limiting factors for the widespread application of these biofuels. The technoeconomic evaluation of biofuels production helps in lowering the overall cost, which in turn largely depends upon the feedstocks and technology chosen for production. The competitiveness between first-generation bio-EtOH and petroleum fuels is generally considered as the technoeconomic analysis for commercial success. In the past, several research works have focused mainly on the selection and cost of feedstocks, process design, yield, productivity, conversion, and energy factors during technoeconomic evaluation using appropriate technology. The present chapter provides a comprehensive literature review and directs the research to achieve a sustainable technoeconomic process as well as an eco-friendly process performance using a multilevel framework through early-stage analysis of risk assessment. Besides, a novel membrane-based multistaged system in the production of biofuels has been discussed in terms of eco-friendliness, flexibility, cost of equipment, energy and material consumption, atom efficiency, E-factor, profitability, and business sustainability.