Chemical Processing - February 2008 - (Page 10)

ALSO IN THIS SECTION: 11 Isobutanol beckons as biofuel >> IN PROCESS Biofeedstocks boast bulk benefits studies point to economic and environmental pluses in making high volume chemicals CommerCialization of renewable-resourCebased routes to chemicals is gathering speed, with major players such as Dow and Dupont already actively involved (www. ChemicalProcessing.com/articles/2007/178.html). now, studies done at utrecht university, utrecht, the netherlands, indicate that biofeedstocks can play a far wider role and offer significant economic and environmental advantages for producing many bulk chemicals. the studies focused on 15 chemicals — acetic acid, acrylic acid, adipic acid, butanol, caprolactam, ethanol, ethyl lactate (el), ethylene, lactic acid, lysine, 1,3-propanediol (PDo), polyethylene terephthalate (Ptt), polyhydroxyakanoates (PHa), polylactic acid (Pla) and succinic acid — that realistically could be produced via fermentation and that have substantial potential consumption, at least 200,000 metric tons/year in western europe, explains barbara G. Hermann of the school’s Department of science, technology and society. an industrial panel, drawn from companies including bP, Degussa, Dsm, Dupont, natureworks, novozymes and shell that are in a consortium supporting the research, were involved in the selection. some of the firms also contributed data from their own large-scale bio-based plants and provided expertise, such as for estimating plant costs. the first study, which appeared in 2007 in Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology, analyzed the economics of production using biofeedstocks versus oil or natural gas. Valid comparisons could be drawn, Hermann notes, because she developed a generic approach that allowed all processes to be put on a common basis. fermentation-based routes included both current technology and what may be possible in the future (assuming continuous fermentation and higher yields, 90 mol.% of the theoretical maximum, because of better genetically engineered micro-organisms). the analyses, based on constructing a new 100,000-mt/ y plant in western europe, gave a profited production cost, akin to a market price, for each chemical for each route. she evaluated its sensitivity to varying prices for sugar (70€/mt, 135€/mt, 200€/mt and 400€/mt) and crude oil ($25/bbl and $50/bbl), the nature of the sugar source (sugar cane, lignocellulosics and corn starch), as well as plant size (100,000 mt/y, as well as 200,000 mt/y and 400,000 mt/y for some of the products). the results showed that making many of the chemicals with biofeedstocks was already economically viable. a second study focused on using a common methodology to assess the environmental impact — namely, greenhouse gas emissions and non-renewable-energy use — for the same 15 bulk chemicals over their entire life cycle. the results, recently published in Environmental Science & Technology, indicate that biofeedstocks provide significant savings compared to conventional petrochemical-based routes for most of the products — fermentation now doesn’t offer benefits only for adipic acid and acetic acid but eventually should (figure 1). indeed, Hermann adds that future fermentation technology may reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 100% when energy credits are considered. since the studies came out, Hermann has updated the results — to consider less optimistic scenarios for the performance of future fermentation technology and to account for higher prices of both crude oil and sugar. as far as productivity, for example, she tested future performance for ethanol using 10 g/lh instead of 50 g/lh (versus current actual values of about 2.2 g/lh for starch feedstock). this impacted investment, primary energy consumption and profited product cost by less than 5%. so, the general conclusions still hold, Hermann stresses. “we actually recently looked at updated numbers for a www.chemicalprocessing.com >> Economic Snapshot 80.0 79.0 78.0 77.0 76.0 75.0 74.0 73.0 72.0 Dec 06 Jan 07 Feb 07 Mar 07 Apr 07 May 07 June 07 July07 Aug07 Sept 07 Oct 07 Nov 07 55,000 54,500 54,000 53,500 $ Million 53,000 52,500 52,000 51,500 51,000 49,500 Shipments (NAICS S325) Capacity utilization 71.0 Shipments slipped slightly while capacity utilization rebounded a bit. Source: American Chemistry Council. 10 • february 2008 % http://www.ChemicalProcessing.com/articles/2007/178.html http://www.ChemicalProcessing.com/articles/2007/178.html http://www.chemicalprocessing.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chemical Processing - February 2008

Chemical Processing - February 2008 Contents From the Editor ChemicalProcessing.com Field Notes In Process Energy Saver Compliance Advisor Nanoparticle Safety Raises Questions Take the Pressure Off Vacuum Systems Achieve Optimum Centrifugal Pump Performance Rethink Batch-Manufacturing Alarm Systems Dr. Gooddata Orlando Plant Pioneers HMI Migration Strategy Process Puzzler Plant InSites Equipment & Services Ad Index Product Spotlight/Classifieds End Point

Chemical Processing - February 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.