Profitable and Sustainable Use of Biomass in Developing Technologies

• Main Author: Ganguly, Arna
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2022
• Subjects: Materials science; Mechanical engineering
• ISBN: 9798368434094

This report outlines the motivations behind the research, reviews and discusses state-of-the-art related literature, and presents current and future research works to identify the usefulness and profitability of converting lignocellulosic biomass to bio-based products. The methodology for the studies is a compilation of examining and evaluating commercial-scale, environment-friendly bio-based facilities. The methodologies include Techno-economic analysis (TEA), Life cycle analysis (LCA), sensitivity analysis of the various process parameters, uncertainty analysis, and use of machine learning techniques to investigate the effect of biomass properties on economic viability and sustainability. This report comprises four studies in total. The first study conducts TEA and LCA of two scenarios producing biofuels using hydroprocessing and fractionation techniques. It investigates the economic and environmental potentials of integrating hydroprocessing, fermentation, and anaerobic digestion into a fast pyrolysis-based refinery. The second and third studies are interlinked research. We explore the techno-economic feasibility and carbon capture capability of a corn stover-fed autothermal pyrolysis facility producing sugars, phenolic oil, and biochar. The initial promising results motivated us to expand the investigation to different feedstocks. To this end, we used machine learning techniques to generate biomass samples with varied biochemical compositions to validate the efficacy of the proposed approach. The primary objective of this study was to observe the impact of biomass biochemical properties on the economic feasibility and sustainability of ATP systems producing biobased products. The fourth study extends the scope of lignocellulosic biomass use by looking at the economic feasibility of producing furoic acid and hydrogen via electrochemical processing of biomass-derived furfural.