Abstract
Food waste (FW) is one of the most critical problems in the world. Most FW will be sent to landfills, generally accompanying some significant disadvantages to the surrounding environment. Fermentation is considered as another disposal method to deal with FW. In this study, using a techno-economic analysis (TEA) method, an evaluation of the economic impact of three different scenarios of FW fermentation is carried out. A SuperPro Designer V9.0 simulation was used to model a commercial scale processing plant for each scenario, namely, a FW fermentation process producing hydrolysis enzymes and featuring a 2-step distillation system, a FW fermentation process without enzymes, using a 2-step distillation system, and a FW fermentation process without enzymes, using a 1-step distillation system. Discounted cash flow analysis is used to estimate the minimum ethanol selling price (MESP), where the lowest MESP result of $2.41/gal ($0.64/L) of ethanol is found for the second aforementioned scenario, showing that, even without enzymes in FW fermentation, the product cost can be competitive when compared to the other scenarios considered in this study. This project thus reflects a significant positive economic impact while minimizing the environmental footprint of a commercial production facility.
Highlights
Finding other options to reduce fossil fuel dependency is an exciting and challenging field of study
[29], so the focus of this study is to evaluate the economic impact of ethanol production from
The mass balance obtained from the conceptual plant simulation shows that case study B presents a higher amount of ethanol production, as expected
Summary
Finding other options to reduce fossil fuel dependency is an exciting and challenging field of study. Ethanol has been identified to be one of the best options to substitute gasoline, with less of a negative impact on the environment. Increasing biofuel production has gained more attention globally. There are mandates in most countries to support biofuel development and consumption. In the United States, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2), under the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), has set total renewable fuel production to increase by more than 100% from 2008 to 2022. Apart from that, cellulosic ethanol is predicted to be produced, where at least 16 million gallons is estimated to be produced in 2022 [1].
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