| 1. |
- Badr, Sara, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Combined basic and fine chemical biorefinery concepts with integration of processes at different technology readiness levels
- 2018
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Ingår i: Computer Aided Chemical Engineering. - 1570-7946. ; 43, s. 1577-1582
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Biorefineries offer promising alternatives to the use of fossil fuels to produce energy and chemicals. This work describes the development of a biorefinery concept to produce adipic acid from Swedish forest residues and lutein from micro-algae. A description is provided for each process line available, its technology readiness level (TRL) and the tools available to model it. Scenarios of the integrated concept are built with associated material flow analysis. Key results of the material inventory of the base case scenario are presented as well as insights into the development of further scenarios. Material flow inventories can then be further used for economic and environmental assessment. Major challenges of integration are discussed in terms of uncertainties and data gaps for processes with low TRL such as scaling up lab experiments, understanding the restrictions of material recycling and its impact on process performance. The feedback given through these scenarios can help guide further experimental efforts.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Janssen, Mathias, 1973, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental assessment of a biorefinery concept for production of bulk and fine chemicals
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Moving from a fossil-based to a bio-based economy requires the development of new technologies and process concepts for the production of bio-based energy, chemicals and materials. Biorefinery concepts can be designed by integrating such technologies in order to provide environmentally and economically attractive alternatives to produce bulk and fine chemicals. This paper presents life cycle and techno-economic assessments of a novel biorefinery concept, in its early stages of development, for the combined production of adipic acid from forest residues and of lutein from micro-algae. Adipic acid is a bulk chemical with a yearly production of approximately 2.3 million tonnes, and is primarily used for the production of nylon-6,6. Conventional adipic acid production from fossil resources causes significant emissions of N2O due to the use of nitric acid as an oxidizing agent. This conventional production can thus lead to a significant climate impact if these emissions are not sufficiently mitigated. Lutein is a high added-value chemical used in the food and pharmaceutical industries, and is conventionally produced from marigold flowers. The biorefinery concept in this work consists of the pretreatment of forest residues, the separation of lignin (which is an important by-product), and the hydrolysis and fermentation of the pretreated forest residues to adipic acid which is then separated and purified. Water, nutrients and CO2 flows from the adipic acid production can be connected to the algae production. The lutein is extracted from the micro-algae using methanol. Anaerobic digestion is used in this concept to produce biogas (another important by-product) from waste streams. The biorefinery concept thus comprises technologies that are at different technology readiness levels (TRLs), from as low as a TRL of 2 for the fermentation process, to a TRL of 9 for the anaerobic digestion process. Twelve design variants of the biorefinery concept were modelled and simulated based on experimental and literature data. These variants aimed at narrowing down uncertainties about, for instance, the performance of the fermentation process. The data and information resulting from the simulations of the design variants were used 1) to compile the life cycle inventories for the LCA of each of these variants, and to do the subsequent life cycle impact assessment, and 2) to determine the capital and operating costs in order to calculate the economic feasibility of the biorefinery design variants. The assessment of all variants provides a range for the environmental and economic performance of the biorefinery concept based on design choices and process conditions. Furthermore, scenarios for future energy systems were considered in order to assess the influence of the background system on the performance of the biorefinery concept. The results show that there is a large variation in the performance among the different design variants, where some designs can significantly improve the prospects for the bio-based adipic acid production. However, the results are strongly dependent on the foreground and background energy systems. The results provide valuable insights to industry and policy decision makers in order to guarantee an environmentally benign and economically feasible production of bulk and fine chemicals in a biorefinery.
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| 4. |
- Janssen, Mathias, 1973, et al.
(författare)
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Prospective LCA of a biorefinery concept for production of bulk and fine chemicals
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The move from a fossil-based to a bio-based economy requires the development of new technologies and process concepts for the production of bio-based energy, chemicals and materials. A biorefinery concept can be designed by integrating such technologies, and can thus provide a viable alternative to produce bulk and fine chemicals. This paper presents a prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) of a novel biorefinery concept, in its early stages of development, for the combined production of adipic acid from forest residues (GROT) and of lutein from micro-algae. Adipic acid is a high-volume chemical (yearly production of approx. 2.3 million tonnes) and is primarily used for the production of nylon-6,6. Conventional adipic acid production from fossil resources is characterized by significant emissions of N2O. Lutein is a high added-value chemical used in the food and pharmaceutical industries, and is conventionally produced from marigold flowers. Furthermore, lignin is an important by-product. The biorefinery concept in this work consists of the pretreatment of GROT, the separation of lignin, and the hydrolysis and fermentation of the pretreated GROT to adipic acid which is then separated and purified. Water, nutrients and CO2 flows from the adipic acid production can be connected to the algae production. Anaerobic digestion is used in this concept to produce biogas from waste streams. Multiple design variants of the biorefinery concept, which is the foreground system, were modelled and simulated based on both experimental and literature data. These variants aimed at narrowing down uncertainties about, for instance, the most suitable GROT pretreatment options, available technologies for anaerobic digestion, and possible routes for further processing of lignin. The data and information resulting from the simulations of the design variants were used to compile the life cycle inventories of each of these variants. The assessment of these variants provides a range for the future environmental performance of the biorefinery concept based on design choices and process conditions. Furthermore, scenarios for future energy systems were considered in order to assess the influence of the background system on the environmental performance of the biorefinery concept. The results provide more relevant information and valuable insight to industry and policy decision makers in order to guarantee an environmentally benign future production of bulk and fine chemicals.
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| 5. |
- Papadopoulos, Athanasios I., et al.
(författare)
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Computer-aided molecular design and selection of CO2 capture solvents based on thermodynamics, reactivity and sustainability
- 2016
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Ingår i: Molecular Systems Design and Engineering. - : Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). - 2058-9689. ; 1:3, s. 313-334
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The identification of improved carbon dioxide (CO2) capture solvents remains a challenge due to the vast number of potentially-suitable molecules. We propose an optimization-based computer-aided molecular design (CAMD) method to identify and select, from hundreds of thousands of possibilities, a few solvents of optimum performance for CO2 chemisorption processes, as measured by a comprehensive set of criteria. The first stage of the approach involves a fast screening stage where solvent structures are evaluated based on the simultaneous consideration of important pure component properties reflecting thermodynamic, kinetic, and sustainability behaviour. The impact of model uncertainty is considered through a systematic method that employs multiple models for the prediction of performance indices. In the second stage, high-performance solvents are further selected and evaluated using a more detailed thermodynamic model, i.e. the group-contribution statistical associating fluid theory for square well potentials (SAFT-gamma SW), to predict accurately the highly non-ideal chemical and phase equilibrium of the solvent-water-CO2 mixtures. The proposed CAMD method is applied to the design of novel molecular structures and to the screening of a data set of commercially available amines. New molecular structures and commercially-available compounds that have received little attention as CO2 capture solvents are successfully identified and assessed using the proposed approach. We recommend that these solvents should be given priority in experimental studies to identify new compounds.
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| 6. |
- Shavalieva, Gulnara, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainability assessment using local lazy learning: The case of post-combustion CO2 capture solvents
- 2018
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Ingår i: Computer Aided Chemical Engineering. - 1570-7946. ; 44, s. 823-828
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The consideration of sustainability is very important for the assessment of life cycle, environmental, health and safety properties of chemicals used in various applications. The screening of wide ranges of molecular structures, prior to the identification of the optimum and most sustainable options, requires the use of efficient and inclusive predictive models. Group contribution (GC) models are popular for the evaluation of numerous molecular options, but they support the calculation of few properties related to sustainability, while their predictive capabilities are often limited by significant data gaps. To address such challenges, we propose the use of a local learning approach as a means of evaluating sustainability properties for a wide range of molecular structures. Supplementing GC methods with data mining ones, such as local lazy learning approaches and exploiting molecular similarities has a potential to improve the predictive capacity of sustainability indices and offers an alternative when GC methods or empirical models are not available for life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental, health and safety (EHS) hazard assessment indicators. The proposed approach is applied to predict a set of properties (bioaccumulation, persistence and acute aquatic toxicity) of 101 commercial solvents for post-combustion CO2capture.
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| 7. |
- Yap, Jane Yee, et al.
(författare)
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A graphical method for carbon dioxide emissions reduction in multi–product plants
- 2020
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Ingår i: Process Safety and Environmental Protection: Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, Part B. - : Elsevier BV. - 1744-3598 .- 0957-5820. ; 133, s. 51-63
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Carbon dioxide emissions reduction has been a common trend for many industrial processes in recent years. However, few analytical tools have been developed for visualising CO2 emissions reduction and supporting decisions at the enterprise level. A graphical technique known as Carbon Emission Composite Curves was developed previously, but was limited to the production of single product. In this work, the CO2 emissions reduction procedure is focused and extended to multi-product plants, in which CO2 emissions of shared and dedicated facilities of the production line are analysed. For cases where the carbon intensity of shared facilities is higher than that of the dedicated facilities, CO2 emissions reduction should focus on the shared facilities, before efforts are put forward for the dedicated facilities. In contrast, when the carbon intensity of dedicated facilities is higher than that of the shared facilities, it is necessary to explore ways to reduce CO2 emissions of the dedicated facilities. Two case studies are used to illustrate the procedure.
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| 8. |
- Yap, Jane Yee, et al.
(författare)
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A heuristic-based technique for carbon footprint reduction for the production of multiple products
- 2018
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Ingår i: Chemical Engineering Transactions. - 2283-9216. ; 70, s. 943-948
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Carbon footprint (CF) reduction is a common trend for many industrial processes in recent years. However, not many analytical tools have been developed for visualising CF reduction at enterprise level. A graphical technique known as the CF Composite Curves to aid decision making in CF reduction at enterprise level has been developed in previous work. However, the method was limited to the production of a single product. In this paper, the CF reduction procedure is extended to the more general case of multiple products. The CF of shared and independent facilities are analysed. An illustrative example shows that for cases when the CF intensity of shared facilities is higher than that of the independent facilities, CF reduction should focus on the shared facilities, before efforts are put forward for the independent facilities. In contrast, when the CF intensity of independent facilities is higher than that of the shared facilities, it is necessary to explore ways to reduce CF of the independent facilities.
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