Advances in the techno-economic assessment to identify the ideal plant configuration of a new biomass-to-liquid process

Abstract

2nd generation biofuels constitute a promising candidate to provide part of the future demand on renewable fuels. Within biomass-to-liquid (BTL) processes synthetic hydrocarbons can be produced via Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis, which meet current fuel requirements. Due to its high similarity to conventional fuels these liquids can be utilized in existing infrastructure. Hence, a potential market launch is only limited by their production costs. Exactly that is what the EU-project COMSYN (Compact Gasification and Synthesis process for Transport Fuels) is aiming at. With its process concept the project can reach a significant reduction of the biofuel production costs by up to 35 % compared to alternative fuels. To achieve this ambitious goal, the project pursues two major approaches: - Firstly, combining multiple high-efficient process steps, such as a new gasification concept (developed by VTT) together with a hot gas filtration and a FT-microreactor (developed by INERATEC). - Secondly, investigating decentralized production sites of FT-products in combination with a centralized fuel upgrading concept at existing refineries. To find the optimal process configuration regarding the site specific boundary conditions a flowsheet model has been set up based on experimental data received during the project's test runs at VTT. Furthermore, the existing DLR in-house software TEPET (Albrecht et al ) is extended by an automated utility and heat integration to receive comparable economic results during a simultaneous variation of technical and economical process parameters. The influence of site factors on the optimal process design will be presented, which allows the definition of required boundary conditions and a preliminary site selection for future stand-alone or integrated biomass-to-liquid processes.