Techno-economic analysis of the production of 2G ethanol and technical lignin via a protic ionic liquid pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse

• Autor(a) principal: Leal Silva, Jean Felipe
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Nakasu, Pedro Y.S., Costa, Aline C. da, Maciel Filho, Rubens, Rabelo, Sarita C. [UNESP]
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2022.115788; http://hdl.handle.net/11449/246097
• topic: Biofuel; Biorefinery; Ionic liquid; Process simulation; Wastewater management

The increasing demand for renewable energy, fuels, and chemicals encourages the development of new biorefinery processes. This work presents a techno-economic analysis of the pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse using the protic ionic liquid 2-hydroxyethylammonium acetate ([MEA][OAc]) considering four washing methods to remove it from the pretreated pulp. In the best scenario, the increased enzymatic hydrolysis yield and the more efficient counter-current washing method contributed to an increased ethanol yield of 33 %. Despite the lower increment in ethanol yield compared with other second-generation processes, the production of technical lignin increased the reaction mass efficiency of the biorefinery by 5.6 % and led to an internal rate of return two percentage points higher. However, wastewater and vinasse production increased by 26 % and 50 %, respectively. These results indicate that protic ionic liquids are potentially good pretreatment agents to produce fuels and chemicals from biomass, thus underpinning the establishment of new biorefinery processes.