INVESTIGATION, SIMULATION AND COMPARISON OF VARIOUS ROUTES FOR BIOETHANOL PRODUCTION

Abstract

Bioethanol has proven its value as an alternative fuel to gasoline, in fact, more as an adding than a competitor. Bioethanol has attracted a lot of interest due to its biodegradable nature, low cost, low toxicity and safety. The present work is focused on process modelling and simulation of bioethanol production using biomass and / or CO₂ and H₂ as raw-materials. The first scenario investigated considers the biomass fermentation, the second scenario considers the thermo-catalytic hydrogenation of CO₂ while the combination of the previously methods was assumed in the third scenario. The main advantages of these routes are the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the production of one valuable chemical, bioethanol. A productivity of 30,000 tones/year of bioethanol is set for all three cases. Purities, higher than 90% for the main product, are obtained. The technical comparison of the three scenarios leads to the conclusion that the best option to obtain bioethanol is from cellulosic biomass. In this first case, the energy consumption is 0.08 kW / kg bioethanol and the carbon dioxide emissions are 0.96 kg CO₂ / kg bioethanol being much lower than in the other two considered cases.