Abstract
Process simulations allow the evaluation of the emissions and selling price for the production of the key monomer FDCA based on different feedstocks and solvent systems, alongside considerations of safety and current process development.
Highlights
The processing of renewable feedstocks as substitutes for oilderived products is one of the main challenges associated with attempts to decrease CO2 emissions and move towards a sustainable economy
Fozer and co-workers recently performed a life cycle assessment for the production of terephthalic acid (TA) through different biorenewable routes and compared them with traditional routes. This revealed that if p-xylene is substituted with the more sustainable p-cymene, CO2 emissions related to the synthesis of TA could be reduced by a factor of 40.17 a technoeconomic assessment is needed in order to evaluate the feasibility of this process on a large scale since current biorenewable routes are characterized by significant inefficiencies
Simulations were performed for different processes to form furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) from HMF and these were evaluated based on the estimated minimum selling price of FDCA and the CO2 emissions associated with the process
Summary
PET production has been optimised through the development of efficient polymerisation technologies and improvements in the synthesis of the monomer terephthalic acid (TA) in high purity and yield from p-xylene.[8,9] These efforts have decreased the price of PET remarkably and allowed it to become the first commercialised polyester worldwide. The isolation of HMF has proved challenging due to the instability of this molecule and its high affinity with the reaction media, which make solvent extraction or distillation unfeasible.[18,19] HMF undergoes decomposition even at room temperature, which makes storage on a large scale expensive due to the need for refrigeration.[20,21] there is still great interest in replacing PET with PEF due to its superior barrier proprieties (e.g., towards O2 and CO2) and the importance of exploiting renewable feedstocks in place of petrochemically-derived precursors to help reduce CO2 emissions.[22] Patel and co-workers have estimated that the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with PET production can be reduced by more than half by substituting terephthalic acid with FDCA.[23] This aspect, combined with the lower price of fructose compared to p-xylene, has the potential to deliver a process where both environmental impact and profitability are improved. Efficient solvent regeneration is fundamental to limit both the energy expenditure and CO2 emissions and so the energy cost of water removal should be completely or partially compensated by the heat of reaction
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