3.) Biorefinery

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De La Salle University Dasmarias

College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology

Engineering Department

Professional Electives I (EEET428)

Research #3: Biorefinery

Juan Pocholo F. Belza Date Submitted:EEE 41 March 07, 2014

Engr, Leslie Divina

Instructor


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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 beenidentified 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 set-a-side land is currently cut to waste with the consequent release of CO2 into the atmosphere.


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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-calledgreen 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.


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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.


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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.


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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/
http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/biorefinery.htmlhttp://www.biorefinery.ie/biorefinery.htmlhttp://www.biorefinery.ie/biorefinery.htmlhttp://climatetechwiki.org/technology/biorefhttp://climatetechwiki.org/technology/biorefhttp://climatetechwiki.org/technology/biorefhttp://www.biorefinery.ie/biorefinery.htmlhttp://www.nrel.gov/biomass/biorefinery.html

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