Abstract
The concern of food waste (FW) impact on the environment, societies, and economies, has triggered many researchers to find alternative ways to utilize these materials. FW can be high in glucose and other sugars (depending upon the food used) and has the potential to be converted into value-added products such as ethanol. Ethanol is an organic material that has a high demand from different industries for products such as fuel, beverages, pharmaceuticals, and other industrial applications. FW fermentation to produce ethanol may be a promising method, and might results in positive impacts on economies. However, it is a challenge for the product price to compete with that of corn ethanol due to low yield and the inconsistency of FW composition. Thus, to increase the profitability, a conventional fermentation plant integrated with a combined heat and power (CHP) system might be a great combination, and was analyzed in this study. Solid waste stream from the process can be converted into energy and could reduce the utility cost. Therefore, the main focus of this study is to evaluate the economic impact of this integrated system by estimating the minimum selling price (MSP) using techno-economic analysis (TEA) and compare to conventional plants without CHP. Results from this analysis showed that the MSE value for this integrated system was $1.88 per gallon ($0.50 per liter). This study suggests that an integrated system with CHP was found to be more economical and attractive to be implemented on a commercial scale.
Highlights
Every year, the world generates about 1.3 billion tons of food waste (FW) through supply food chain stages including at the consumer level
This finding shows that the fermentation process integrated with combined heat and power (CHP) has a significant impact on reducing the product cost
Increasing the amount of FW feedstock to the plant from. This techno-economic analysis evaluates the cost of integrated CHP with FW fermentation process in producing ethanol as the primary product
Summary
The world generates about 1.3 billion tons of food waste (FW) through supply food chain stages including at the consumer level. This waste is expected to increase due to several factors such as managerial and technical limitation, global population, modernization, and living style (Gustavsson et al, 2011; Aschemann-Witzel et al, 2015). FW could lead to various problems such as to the environment, society, the ecosystem, and the economy (Papargyropoulou et al, 2014). By considering the amount of valuable nutrients in the FW, recycling using the biological platform in producing other value-added products would be a great approach. This method is expected to have a good impact on the economy and the environment compared to the thermochemical technology
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