De La Salle University Dasmarias College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology Engineering Department

Professional Electives I (EEET428) Research #3: Biorefinery

Juan Pocholo F. Belza EEE 41

Date Submitted: March 07, 2014

Engr, Leslie Divina Instructor

BIOREFINERY A biorefinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power, and chemicals from biomass. The biorefinery concept is analogous to today's petroleum refineries, which produce multiple fuels and products from petroleum. Industrial biorefineries have been identified as the most promising route to the creation of a new domestic bio-based industry. By producing multiple products, a biorefinery can take advantage of the differences in biomass components and intermediates and maximize the value derived from the biomass feedstock. A biorefinery might, for example, produce one or several low-volume, but high-value, chemical products and a low-value, but high-volume liquid transportation fuel, while generating electricity and process heat for its own use and perhaps enough for sale of electricity. The high-value products enhance profitability, the high-volume fuel helps meet national energy needs, and the power production reduces costs and avoids greenhouse-gas emissions. Biorefineries are based on petrochemical refinery technology and their development represents a potential key for the integrated production of energy in the form of bio-gas (for the production of electricity) and bio-ethanol (for transportation), plant based protein for food and feed; and high value bio chemicals including bio-based products which are both photo and biodegradable. In essence, a green biorefinery is a processing plant in which herbaceous biomass feedstock is converted (through a biorefining process) into a spectrum of valuable products with near zero CO2 emissions By focussing on fresh grass and grass silage, this technology will change the current perception of grass as a feed for animals to viewing it as a feedstock for the production of energy and non-food products. In this regard the utilisation of grass in a biorefinery will reduce CO2 emissions as the grass used would otherwise be used as animal feed and in the process lead to the production of green house gases (eg.CO2 and Methane). Accordingly green biorefineries will help to reduce CO2 levels in the environment. Similarly, the realisation of green biorefineries in tillage areas in Ireland can provide a valuable market for the grass grown (and cut to waste) on set-a-side land in these areas. The grass cut on this seta-side land is currently cut to waste with the consequent release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Different concepts of biorefineries

According to R. van Ree and B. Annevink (2007) there are several different biorefinery concepts possible. Conventional biorefineries (CBRs) for instance are already existing food production and processing activities. Examples of CBRs are the sugar, starch and vegetable oil industry. The so-called green biorefinery (GBR) assumes processing fresh (wet) biomass, such as green grass, lucerne and clover crops. Pressurization of wet biomass results in a fibre-rich press cake and a nutrient-rich press juice. Whole crop biorefineries (WCBR) assumes mechanical separation of the food-grade fraction (i.e. rice, wheat, etc.), whereas the residual part (e.g. straw) is further processed in the petrochemical industry in a ligno-cellulosic feedstock biorefinery platform (LCFBR). A number of other biorefenery concepts with an assessment of the development status are provided in the figure below.

Biorefining
Biorefining refers to fractionating biomass into various separated products that possibly undergo a further biological, biochemical, physical and/or thermal chemical processing and separation. By means of co-producing relatively high value chemicals (e.g. fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, polymers) the production costs of secondary energy carriers (e.g. transport fuels, heat, power) potentially could become market competitive, especially when biorefining is integrated into the existing chemical, material and power industries.

Primary Refinery
Deriving a raw material stream with desired specifications (i.e. amount of ash, fermentable sugars, lignin) while simultaneous extract valuable components from the heterogeneous biomass streams is one of the major biorefinery R&D issues. The following main R&D areas are identified which need to be addressed before an efficient biomass pre-treatment chain can be established: Characterization and standardization of raw materials and products Development of a cost-effective infrastructure for production, collection, characterization, storage, identity preservation, pre-processing activities, import and transportation of feedstocks Development of economically viable pre-treatment processes for a range of current and new biobased feedstocks

Secondary Refinery
Concerning secondary biorefining a distinction is made between thermochemical and biochemical based refinery. Thermochemical based refinery processes are generally consisting of the following interconnected unit operations: pre-treatment (i.e. drying, size reduction), feeding, conversion (e.g. gasification, pyrolysis), product clean up and conditioning, and product end-use. Thermochemical conversion technologies convert biomass and its residues to fuels, chemicals, and power. Gasification, i.e. heating biomass with about one-third of the oxygen necessary for complete combustion, produces a mixture of CO2 and hydrogen, known as syngas. Pyrolysis, i.e. heating biomass in the absence of oxygen, produces a liquid pyrolysis oil. Both syngas and pyrolysis oil can be used as fuels that are cleaner and more efficient than the solid biomass, but can also be chemically converted to other valuable fuels and chemicals. Biochemical conversion technologies involve three basic steps, i.e., (i) converting biomass to sugar or other fermentation feedstock, (ii) fermenting these biomass intermediates using biocatalysts and (iii) processing the fermentation product to yield fuel-grade ethanol and other fuels, chemicals, heat and/or electricity. Researchers are working to improve the efficiency and economics of both the thermochemical and biochemical conversion process technologies by focusing their efforts on the most challenging steps in the process, i.e. on syngas production and utilization (thermochemical) and on improving pretreatment technology, for breaking hemicellulose down to component sugars and developing more cost-effective cellulose enzymes, for breaking cellulose down to its component sugar (biochemical). Researchers are also working to demonstrate the thermochemical and biochemical conversion processes in real-world applications. The integration and production activities require involvement of industrial partners.

The Process of Biorefining

The bio-refinery process is quite flexible in that it has the capacity to process a range of materials interchangeably. It is also flexible in that it can produce a number of different end products depending on what the market requires and can react to price trends quite easily.

Reference: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (September 2009). Biomass Research (March 2, 2014). http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/biorefinery.html Biorefinery Ireland. Biorefinery (March 2, 2014). http://www.biorefinery.ie/biorefinery.html Biorefinery Ireland. Biorefinery (March 2, 2014). http://www.biorefinery.ie/process.html ClimateTechWiki. Biorefinery (March 2, 2014). http://climatetechwiki.org/technology/bioref Bio2Value (July 2009). Biorefinery Concepts (March 2, 2014). http://www.biorefinery.nl/background-biorefinery/biorefinery-concepts/