Rigorous simulation and techno-economic analysis of a bio-jet-fuel intermediate production process with various integration strategies

In this paper, we firstly report on the different scenarios of the process integration to produce jet-fuel intermediates from biomass. Rigorous process simulation, optimization, techno-economical evaluation, and carbon emission calculation are performed. We start from the aldol condensation process converting furfural and acetone to the jet-fuel intermediate. COSMO-SAC model and the PR+COSMOSAC equation of state (EOS) are firstly incorporated to estimate the missing physical properties of both pure component and the mixture. In this part, three process schemes (the distillation-only process, the multi-effect evaporation (MEE) assisted process, and the solvent-less process) are investigated, and the total annual cost (TAC) are compared. Comparing with the distillation-only process, the optimization results indicate a more favorable condition in the solvent-less process (89.76% TAC reduction) than the MEE-assisted process (25.54% TAC reduction). Moreover, different strategies of integrating the aldol condensation process with the front-end furfural production process are discussed. They are presented in five scenarios. YUMC (yearly unit manufacture cost) and ER (emission ratio) are calculated to quantify the economic performance and CO2 emission. Through this work, we suggest that the Scenario 4 (YUMC = 0.716 USD/kg, ER = -1.65) would be the most suitable one for CO2 reduction in the future, and the Scenario 2 (YUMC = 0.698 USD/kg, ER = 0.28) could be the nearest solution to enhance the economic performance and reducing CO2 emission based on the current technology. (C) 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.