(204v) Cost, Environmental Impact and Energy Reduction of Biofuel Production Processes By Combining Process Simulation With Heat Integration

This study proposes a process design methodology based on the combined use of biodiesel and bioethanol process models simulated in Super Pro Designer with cost, environmental and energy balances implemented in Matlab and heat integration using Aspen Energy Analyzer.

We first model and simulate in SuperPro Designer a 2,400,00 gallons/year vegetable oil alkali-catalysed biodiesel process and a 40,000,000 gallons/year dry-grind corn based bioethanol production plant. Then we implement the cost, the environmental impact through the life cycle assessment methodology, and the energy analysis in Matlab. We integrate both software and we execute the simulation from Matlab, obtaining the economic, environmental and energetic results prior the heat integration. Note, The functional unit of the three analyses is 1 gallon of biofuel produced. Therefore the objective functions are: (i) economic objective function is the unit production cost ($/gal), (ii) environmental impact objective function is the kg of CO2 equivalent generated (kgCO2eq/gal), and (iii) energetic objective function is the BTU consumed (BTU/gal). With these data, we calculate the optimal heat integration with the Aspen Energy Analyzer. Finally, we present the reductions in the cost, environmental impact and energy consumption associated to the biofuel production.

As it can be seen, our method provides a comprehensive framework for the design of biofuel plants calculating the optimal heat exchanger network that systematically identifies the best process alternatives in terms of economic, environmental and energetic performance. This information is valuable for decision-makers, as it allows them to adopt more sustainable technological alternatives for biofuel processes.