Process Development and Analysis of Diorefinery for the Coproduction of 1,3-Butadiene and Butene Oligomer

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) promotes the production of a range of liquid fuels and fuel blendstocks from lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks by funding fundamental and applied research that advances the state of technology in biomass collection, conversion, and sustainability.As part of its involvement in this program, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) investigates the conceptual production economics of these fuels.Between 1999 and 2012, NREL conducted a campaign to quantify the economic implications associated with measured conversion performance for the biochemical production of cellulosic ethanol, with a formal program between 2007-2012 to set cost goals and to benchmark annual performance toward achieving these goals, namely the pilot-scale demonstration by 2012 of biochemical ethanol production at a price competitive with petroleum gasoline based on modeled assumptions for an "n th " plant biorefinery.This goal was successfully achieved through NREL's 2012 pilot plant demonstration runs, representing the culmination of NREL research focused specifically on cellulosic ethanol, and a benchmark for industry to leverage as it commercializes the technology.This important milestone also represented a transition toward a new Program focus on infrastructure-compatible hydrocarbon biofuel pathways, and the establishment of new research directions and cost goals across a number of potential conversion technologies.This report describes in detail one potential conversion process to hydrocarbon products by way of biological conversion of lignocellulosic-derived sugars.The pathway model leverages expertise established over time in core conversion and process integration research at NREL, while adding in new technology areas primarily for hydrocarbon production and associated processing logistics.The overarching process design converts biomass to a hydrocarbon intermediate, represented here as a free fatty acid, using dilute-acid pretreatment, enzymatic saccharification, and bioconversion.Ancillary areas-feed handling, hydrolysate conditioning, product recovery and upgrading (hydrotreating) to a final blendstock material, wastewater treatment, lignin combustion, and utilities-are also included in the design.Detailed material and energy balances and capital and operating costs for this baseline process are also documented.This benchmark case study techno-economic model provides a production cost for a cellulosic renewable diesel blendstock (RDB) that can be used as a baseline to assess its competitiveness and market potential.It can also be used to quantify the economic impact of individual conversion performance targets and prioritize these in terms of their potential to reduce cost.The analysis presented here also includes consideration of the life-cycle implications of the baseline process model, by tracking sustainability metrics for the modeled biorefinery, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, fossil energy demand, and consumptive water use.Building on prior design reports for biochemical ethanol production in 1999, 2002, and 2011, NREL, together with the Harris Group Inc., performed a feasibility-level analysis for a plausible conversion pathway to RDB to meet an intermediate DOE cost goal of $5/gallon gasoline equivalent (GGE) by 2017.The modeled biorefinery processes 2,205 dry ton biomass/day and achieves an RDB selling price of $5.10/GGE in 2011$ as determined by modeled conversion targets and "n th -plant" project costs and financing, associated with a process RDB yield of 45.4 GGE/dry ton.In addition, the report includes a high-level discussion on improvements needed to achieve a final 2022 DOE target of $3/GGE moving forward, focused on coproducts from lignin.ii Figure ES-1.Economic summary for diesel blendstock production Minimum Fuel Selling Price (MFSP): $5.35 /galMFSP (Gasoline-Equivalent Basis): $5.10 /GGE Contributions: Feedstock $1.85 /gal ($1.76/GGE) Enzymes $0.39 /gal ($0.37/GGE)Non-Enzyme Conversion $3.11 /gal ($2.96/GGE) RDB Production 31.3MMgal/yr (at 68 °F) (32.9 MM GGE/yr) RDB Yield 43.3 gal / dry U.S. ton feedstock (45.4 GGE/ton) Bioconversion Metabolic Yield 0.284 kg FFA/kg total sugars (79% of theoretical) Feedstock + Handling Cost $80.00 /dry U.S. ton feedstock Internal Rate of Return (After-Tax) 10% Equity Percent of Total Investment 40% Capital Costs Manufacturing Costs (cents/gal RDB product) Pretreatment $51,400,000 Feedstock + Handling 184.9 Neutralization/Conditioning $2,200,000 Sulfuric Acid 6.2 Enzymatic Hydrolysis/Conditioning/Bioconversion Process Flow Diagrams Rigorous Material & Energy Balances ( Aspen Plus )