Retrofitting analysis of integrated bio-refineries

Abstract

A bio-refinery is a processing facility that produces liquid transportation fuels and/or value-added chemicals and other products. Because of the dwindling resources and escalating prices of fossil fuels, there are emerging situations in which the economic performance of fossil-based facilities can be enhanced by retrofitting and incorporation of bio-mass feedstocks. These systems can be regarded as bio-refineries or integrated fossilbio- refineries. This work presents a retrofitting analysis to integrated bio-refineries. Focus is given to the problem of process modification to an existing plant by considering capacity expansion and material substitution with biomass feedstocks. Process integration studies were conducted to determine cost-effective strategies for enhancing production and for incorporating biomass into the process. Energy and mass integration approaches were used to induce synergism and to reduce cost by exchanging heat, material utilities, and by sharing equipment. Cost-benefit analysis was used to guide the decision-making process and to compare various production routes. Ethanol production from two routes was used as a case study to illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach and the results were bio-refinery has become more attractive then fossil-refinery.