(328d) Integrated Processing of Agriculture Residue: Techno-Economic Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment

Abundantly available agriculture residue (e.g. corn stover) can be subjected to integrated biochemical and hydrothermal processing to generate fuel and value-added products. Although conventional biochemical processing for fuel production generates solid waste, it can be hydrothermally treated further to generate products such as oil and hydrochar. Subsequent valorization of oil by hydrodeoxygenation and hydrochar activation by chemical/thermal methods will produce high density fuel and high value carbon, respectively. Aqueous coproduct (ACP), which is generally recovered after hydrothermal processing generally contains carboxylic acids, phenolics, and other compounds. ACP can be recycled to minimize wastewater production or treated to achieve separation of carboxylic acids and phenolics. In this study, hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is employed to treat corn stover and the unhydrolyzed solids (UHS) recovered from biochemical processing and the process is optimized to achieve value-added products for circular bioeconomy. Different reaction parameters are investigated to achieve optimum yields of different products. ASPEN plus modeling is performed to scale-up the integrated process, and techno economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle analysis (LCA) are performed. GREET software is used to assess LCA of integrated bioprocessing of corn stover and UHS. Flow and cost summary with cash flow analysis, sensitivity analysis of change in internal rate of return (IRR) and change in net present value (NPV) will be presented in addition to reduction in GHG emission.