Process simulation and techno-economic assessment for direct production of advanced bioethanol using a genetically modified Synechocystis sp.

• Autor(a) principal: Lopes, Tiago
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Cabanas, Catarina, Silva, André, Fonseca, Diana, Santos, Edgar, Guerra, L. Tiago, Sheahan, Con, Reis, Alberto, Gírio, Francisco
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.9/3294
• topic: Microalgae; Biorefinery; Bioethanol; Modelling; Biofuels

ABSTRACT: A techno-economic assessment for the direct production of ethanol using a genetically-modified microalgae has been studied. It was considered two main scenarios for process modelling: i) bioenergy-driven microalgae plant, i.e., focused on the production of fuel-grade ethanol and biogas for CHP and, ii) biorefinery-driven microalgae plant, focused on the recovery of added-value bioproducts (zeaxanthin and phycocyanin) along with ethanol and CHP production. These main scenarios and several variants were modelled and optimized for a small-scale demo plant of 1000 Lethanol/day and extrapolated for larger production capacities. Results showed that despite the innovative approach of direct production of ethanol by microalgae, the bioenergy-driven scenario is non-feasible under the studied conditions. Conversely, ethanol production becomes economically feasible as co-product in the biorefinery-driven scenario although having payback periods>10 years. Furthermore, if only bio-based products are produced the NPV and the payback are even more positive, 104.8 M€ and ca. 5 years, respectively.