Abstract
Biorefineries are novel, productive models that are aimed at producing biobased alternatives to many fossil-based products. Biomass supply and overall energy consumptions are important issues determining the overall biorefinery sustainability. Low-profit lands appear to be a potential option for the sustainable production of raw materials without competition with the food chain. Cardoon particularly matches these characteristics, thanks to the rapid growth and the economy of the cultivation and harvesting steps. An integrated biorefinery processing 60 kton/y cardoon lignocellulosic biomass for the production of 1,4-butanediol (bio-BDO) is presented and discussed in this work. After designing the biorefinery flowsheet, the mass and energy balances were calculated. The results indicated that the energy recovery system has been designed to almost completely cover the entire energy requirement of the BDO production process. Despite the lower supply of electricity, the energy recovery system can cover around 78% of the total electricity demand. Instead, the thermal energy recovery system was able to satisfy the overall demand of the sugar production process entirely, while BDO purification columns require high-pressure steam. The thermal energy recovery system can cover around 83% of the total thermal demand. Finally, a cradle-to-gate simplified environmental assessment was conducted in order to evaluate the environmental impact of the process in terms of carbon footprint. The carbon footprint value calculated for the entire production process of BDO was 2.82 kgCO2eq/kgBDO. The cultivation phase accounted for 1.94 kgCO2eq/kgBDO, the transport had very little impact, only for 0.067 kgCO2eq/kgBDO, while the biorefinery phase contributes for 0.813 kgCO2eq/kgBDO.
Highlights
The increasing attention to environmental issues and the need to reduce fossil resources have led to creating new sustainable economic growth [1]
Processes 2020, 8, 1585 generation of renewable raw materials represents a tool for territorial regeneration with potentially positive effects on several fronts [4]
This paragraph shows the main results of the cardoon-biorefinery assessment in terms of material balances, energy balances, and environmental impact
Summary
The increasing attention to environmental issues and the need to reduce fossil resources have led to creating new sustainable economic growth [1] These models are based on the alternative and efficient use of raw materials waste or renewable in order to produce added value chemical intermediates or entirely bio-based products [2]. Biomass represents the most sophisticated form of solar energy storage: through the photosynthesis process, plants can convert radiant energy into chemical energy and store it in the form of complex molecules high energy content [6] For this reason, biomass is considered to be a renewable and inexhaustible resource if adequately used, or if the use rate does not exceed the regeneration capacity of the plant growing [7]. Lignocellulosic biomass can be converted to energy and chemicals by thermochemical (e.g., gasification [8]) or biological processes (e.g., sugars fermentation [9])
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