Abstract
Recently, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) has been indicated to be utilized as part of a biorefinery, rather than as a stand-alone technology, since besides extracting added value compounds selectively it has been shown to have a positive effect on the downstream processing of biomass. To this extent, this work evaluates economically the encouraging experimental results regarding the use of SFE during annatto seeds valorization. Additionally, other features were discussed such as the benefits of enhancing the bioactive compounds concentration through physical processes and of integrating the proposed annatto seeds biorefinery to a hypothetical sugarcane biorefinery, which produces its essential inputs, e.g., CO2, ethanol, heat and electricity. For this, first, different configurations were modeled and simulated using the commercial simulator Aspen Plus® to determine the mass and energy balances. Next, each configuration was economically assessed using MATLAB. SFE proved to be decisive to the economic feasibility of the proposed annatto seeds-sugarcane biorefinery concept. SFE pretreatment associated with sequential fine particles separation process enabled higher bixin-rich extract production using low-pressure solvent extraction method employing ethanol, meanwhile tocotrienols-rich extract is obtained as a first product. Nevertheless, the economic evaluation showed that increasing tocotrienols-rich extract production has a more pronounced positive impact on the economic viability of the concept.
Highlights
Nowadays, the image of a sustainable society is focused on a society that has a decentralized local-scale production based on local characteristics of the environment so that chemicals and energy flows can be supplied from diverse biomasses and other renewable resources
The economic evaluation of experimental developed strategies for annatto seeds valorization using process modeling and simulation tools proved that supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is decisive to the economic feasibility of the biorefinery concept as its enables higher bixin-rich extract production and associated with fine particle seeds separation promoted an extract with higher bixin concentration
The SFE process presented the higher share in the investment, from 59% to 69% of the investment depending on the configuration
Summary
The image of a sustainable society is focused on a society that has a decentralized local-scale production based on local characteristics of the environment so that chemicals and energy flows can be supplied from diverse biomasses and other renewable resources. In this context, the biorefinery concept supports a “green” production platform in which different processes are integrated to convert biomass to products such as fuels, chemicals and power. New perspectives on how biomasses can be better valorized with the aid of SFE process have culminated in several developments aiming full use of biomass prior to its chemical conversion, indicating that SFE can be effectively used during the first-step in biorefinery concepts [2].
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