16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

ANALYSIS OF INTEGRATED FLOW SHEETS FOR BIOTECHNOLOGICAL PRODUCTION OF FUEL ETHANOL Cardona C.A.*, Sanchez O.J.*,**
Department of Chemical Engineering, National University of Colombia at Manizales Cra. 27 No. 64-60 of. F505. Manizales, Colombia. Tel.: (57-6)-8866766. E-mail: ccardona@nevado.manizales.unal.edu.co ** University of Caldas, Manizales, Colombia. Tel.: (57-6)-8812895. E-mail: osanchez@ucaldas.edu.co
*

Keywords: fuel ethanol, lignocellulosic biomass, process analysis, process integration INTRODUCTION The world faces the progressive exhaustion of its energetic resources mainly based on nonrenewable oil fuels. At the same time, the energy consumption grows at increasing rates. For example, it was estimated that China oil demand increased 20% in the first quarter of 2004 in comparison with the same period of 2003, due to its spectacular economic growth. In addition, its expected that the US GNP could experience in this year its larger growth rate in 19 years. For meeting this demand, Saudi Arabia and others oil-producing countries have announced a rise in their exportation quotes. However the global panorama in the oil market is dark. The situation in the Middle East and the consequent speculation in the stock exchange, among others factor, have caused the oil price to reach elevated values of 40 dollars per barrel. The world economy may undergo stagnation if the oil barrel maintains this high price. On the other hand, the consumption of fuel oil required by the world economy generates huge amounts of pollution gases released into the atmosphere. This pollution has caused changes in global climate, which has become one of the most concerning issues of the governments, NGOs, communities and public opinion in general. There is a consensus about the need of substitution of non-renewable fuels by renewable ones. One renewable solution is the use of solar energy in form of biomass (bioenergy). The global bioenergy potential consists of residues and bioenergy plantations. The conversion of this feedstock into biofuels represents an important option for both the exploitation of an alternative source of energy and the reduction of polluting gases, mainly carbon dioxide. The CO2 emissions generated by the combustion of biofuels are compensated by the CO2 absorption during the growth of the crops. If the feedstock is composed of residues, the environmental benefits can be increased. The most important biofuel is the fuel ethanol obtained from bioenergy crops and biomass. In addition, fuel ethanol can be utilized as an oxygenate of gasoline elevating its oxygen

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

content, allowing a best oxidation of hydrocarbons and reducing the amounts of aromatic compounds and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. By these reasons, fuel grade ethanol (FGE) is the fastest growing market for ethanol in Europe and America. Fuel ethanol is obtained from sugar in some tropical countries like Brazil and India. Sugar in the form of cane juice extracted directly from crushed cane or from molasses is fermented by yeast. The technology involves a simple pretreatment step for conditioning juice or molasses and pH adjustment. The fermentation can be carried out continuously. In some European countries like France, beet molasses are used. The main feedstock in the US is starch from grains. The US is the first world producer of corn. 90% of starch utilized for fuel ethanol production is coming from corn. For obtaining ethanol from corn it is necessary to breakdown starch chains to obtain glucose syrup, which can be converted to ethyl alcohol by yeast. Therefore, an additional hydrolysis step must be included. Amylases (starch-degrading enzymes) are used with this purpose. The so-called lignocellulosic biomass include agricultural residues, forestry wastes, municipal solid waste, agroindustrial wastes and food processing and other industrial wastes. The lignocellulosic biomass is made up from very complex carbohydrate polymers that dont have use as food. The main components of biomass are cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. For conversion to ethanol, a complex pretreatment process to transform the polymers into fermentable sugars is required. The importance of lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock for ethanol production is evident. The lignocellulosic complex is the most abundant carbohydrate in the Earth and its present in those profuse materials like wood chips, sawdust, paper residues and grass. Their use allows either the production of a valuable biofuel and the utilization of a wide range of residues of domestic and industrial activities. However, the production costs of ethanol from biomass are higher than from corn or sugar cane. McAloon et al. [1] determined that the production cost of 1 L of ethanol obtained from corn was US$0,88 whereas the production cost for biomass ethanol was US$1,50. For this estimation, they designed a standard process based on the utilization of wood chips. Many flow sheet designs have been proposed for the pretreatment step considering that the larger portion of ethanol production costs correspond to this process stage. Today, many efforts have been made with the aim of lowering production costs for biomass ethanol. Its expected that in a few years the evolution of these technologies will allow the widespread oxygenation of gasoline with fuel alcohol and even the substitution of a percentage of fossil fuels. To meet this objective, its necessary to research not only in particular technologies for biomass pretreatment and increasing fermentation yield, but in the process integration.

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

Process integration can play a crucial role in the selection of a proper technology to be implemented in industry, taking into account that most of the flow sheet designs are based in technologies that are not completely developed [2]. In particular, process integration can allow: Integration of all involved unit operations in the ethanol production from biomass. Assessment and optimization of different process configurations. Product diversification, including non-fuel coproducts. Analysis and evaluation of concurrent pretreatment alternatives. Development and consolidation of particular technologies like simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. Analysis of the impact of specific technologies over the global process and its costs through the improvement of basic design tools. Analysis of the influence of the changes in composition and source of feedstock on the global process. Decreasing negative environmental impacts of different process configurations. Design of advanced models for the optimization of production costs of fuel ethanol from biomass using a systemic approach.

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVE OF THE RESEARCH Recent literature reported many flow sheets combinations for the production of fuel ethanol. Most of the proposed flow sheets have been analyzed from the point of view of material balances and production costs, but not all of them report an energy integration analysis of this process, specially in the separation stage of ethanol. The aim of this work is to investigate different flow sheet combinations for the biotechnological production of fuel ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass analyzing them from the energy point of view. PROCESS CONFIGURATIONS Overall fuel ethanol production from lignocellulosic biomasss includes five main steps: Pretreatment Hydrolysis Fermentation Separation Effluent treatment

All these steps have been investigated with intensity on last years and many technological improvements have been proposed. It was selected some configurations from the whole group of available proposed configurations. The selection procedure included those

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

technologies that are more perspectives considering the use of qualitative improvements of the process and the viability of their implementation. To solve this problem, it was chosen many configurations from the following number of improvements combinations: 2 types of pretreatment and hydrolysis, 3 types of fermentation configurations, 2 types of separation technologies and 2 types of effluent treatment. Pretreatment and Hydrolysis The lignocellulosic biomass has to be transformed into a form suitable for assimilation by the yeast or other process microorganisms. For this reason, the biomass is converted in a mixture of fermentable sugars, mainly glucose. Cellulose contained in biomass is the more important source of glucose but, unfortunately, its degradation is difficult because of the crystalline structure of this polysaccharide. To break down the cellulose chains, it is necessary a hydrolysis treatment that can be done with inorganic acids or with enzymes. Published data show that the enzymes prices are one of the most important factors that contribute to the total costs of the fuel ethanol [3]. On the other hand, other component of biomass, the hemicellulose, is mostly converted into pentoses through acid hydrolysis. This process is generally carried out before the cellulose hydrolysis. The product of this pretreatment can be utilized as substrate for pentose fermentation. The third main component of biomass, the lignin, cannot be degraded and its separated with the aim of utilizing it as fuel for the generation of process steam. It was selected the following two types of pretreatment and hydrolysis configurations: Dilute-acid hemicellulose pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose without splitting of the stream for cofermentation of pentoses and hexoses Dilute-acid hemicellulose pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose with deviation of the hemicellulose hydrolyzate stream for separate pentose fermentation

Fermentation The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the process microorganism used in the fermentation of sugar-containing biomass hydrolyzate. However, this microorganism is not enabled to metabolize pentoses produced during the hemicellulose pretreatment, although it can assimilate the hexoses released from this polysaccharide. Other microorganisms like the bacterium Zymomonas mobilis can utilize both of the sugars, pentoses and hexoses, in a cofermentation process leading to greater conversion of feedstock to ethanol. It was expected that in the next years, the fermentation using Z. mobilis could be fully developed in order to improve the process operation parameters.

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

One of the main challenges that faces ethanol producers is the product inhibition experimented by the yeast at the end of fermentation when ethanol accumulates in the culture broth. This inhibition does not allow reaching elevated ethanol concentrations, decreasing productivity of the process. One approach to solve this problem is the utilization of continuous fermentation using immobilized cells of yeast. Similarly, it has been utilized reactors with cell recycle to facilitate an increased volumetric productivity through elevated cell concentrations. For the last years, it was proposed the implementation of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) process which implies the realization of cellulose hydrolysis and hexose fermentation in the same vessel. The main advantage of this configuration is to avoid the inhibition of cellulases by high concentrations of glucose as result of the cellulose hydrolysis. In this way, the glucose produced by enzymatic hydrolysis is immediately consumed by the yeast that converts it into ethanol. Many of proposed process configurations involve this type of combined process and it is the base for the design of standard process for ethanol production of lignocellulosic biomass to fuel ethanol [4]. For the fermentation step, it was selected the following three types of configurations: Simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation using Zymomonas mobilis Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation using Sacharomyces cerevisiae and separate pentose fermentation Continuous fermentation using Sacharomyces cerevisiae and separate pentose fermentation

Separation Once the fermentation has achieved, the culture broth is directed to the separation step. The separation includes the biomass withdrawal through filtration or centrifugation, the distillation of the aqueous solutions of ethanol, and the dehydration of the distillate to obtain anhydrous ethanol. These processes are energy consuming, especially when only distillation is used to produce absolute ethanol. Here, the aim of energy integration can be reached through unit operations coupled to distillation. One of this operations that can be perspective due to its low level of energy consumption, is the pervaporation. To analyze the separation step it was selected the following two configurations: Conventional distillation and azeotropic distillation. Conventional distillation and pervaporation.

Effluent Treatment

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

Despite the utilization of bioagents and, therefore, its biotechnological character, the production of fuel ethanol from biomass produces large amounts of wastewater which must be processed for the degradation of its organic matter content in order to dispose of. The main effluents produced in the process include the stillage from the distillation columns, the wastewater from the enzymatic process and the solid wastes from the pretreatment step (mostly lignin). The following three options for the effluent treatment step were selected: Evaporation of the stillage effluent Recycling of wastewater from bottoms of rectification column and from centrifuge for washing of pretreated hydrolyzate Recycling of wastewater from bottoms of the rectification column and from the centrifuge for washing of pretreated hydrolyzate and use of condensed water from evaporators for pretreatment reactor

FLOWSHEETING RESULTS The different flowsheet configurations resulting of the combining all the selected options in each process step were simulated using Aspen Plus (Aspen Technologies, Inc., USA). It was used also software specially designed by our research group for simulation of specific unit operations. The objective function was defined as energy consumption. The analysis was made taking into account the best variants of each configuration assuming that no technological limitations are present for the proposed technologies. For example, it was assumed that the cellulases used for hydrolysis were purchased to commercial suppliers that guaranteed their availability and efficiency. On the other hand, its understood that the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation process is fully developed. Among several combinations of stages for the pretreatment and fermentation steps, it was considered as a base case the process comprised of dilute acid pretreatment for hemicellulose hydrolysis, enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose, fermentation of hexoses (mainly glucose) by yeast and separate pentose fermentation. This base case includes azeotropic distillation and evaporation of stillage. The hydrolyzate from pretreatment reactor is splitted by filtration to remove the solid fraction that its washed with fresh water and directed to detoxification stage and fermentation. The liquid fraction with a high content of pentoses (mainly xylose) is used as a culture medium for pentose fermentation by yeasts with the ability to assimilate pentoses and convert them into ethanol. Dilute sulfuric acid is used in the pretreatment reactor at high pressure. Table 1 shows the ethanol yield and unit energy costs for the base case in comparison with two other modifications. In the first modification, the conversion of glucose to ethanol by

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

yeast is performed simultaneously with the cellulose hydrolysis in order to increase fractional conversion of cellulose by cellulases, which can be inhibited if high amounts of glucose are achieved in the medium. In this case, the glucose is immediately consumed by the yeasts. This process is carried out at 30C in a cascade of continuous reactors. In the second modification, the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation is carried out by added cellulases and by the bacterium Zymomonas mobilis, which is able to assimilate both hexoses and pentoses (cofermentation). Therefore, ethanol yield is increased and the capital costs are lowered because pentose fermentation is eliminated. Table 1. Comparison of some pretreatment and fermentation variants for ethanol production from woody biomass.
FLOWSHEET VARIANT ETHANOL YIELD UNIT ENERGY COSTS ENERGY COSTS PERCENTAGE OF THE BASE CASE

L / Dry wood ton Base Case: Dilute acid pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, separate hexose and pentose fermentations, azeotropic distillation Dilute acid pretreatment, simultaneous saccharification and hexose fermentation (SSF), separate pentose fermentation, azeotropic distillation Dilute acid pretreatment, simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation (SSCF), azeotropic distillation

Mcal / L EtOH

308,08

27,82

100,00%

328,08

26,44

95,04%

371,81

23,08

82,94%

As can be observed in table 1, the SSCF process has lower energy consumption in terms of required Mcal for the production of 1 L of ethyl alcohol (>99 % w/w). Additionally, ethanol yield becomes higher due to the characteristics of the simultaneous process (reduced inhibition, higher productivity). Therefore, it was showed that energy savings could be reached if the lignocellulosic biomass is not splitted into two streams for carrying out two separate fermentation processes. In this case, the energy consumed for agitation and maintenance of the continuous regime in one train of bioreactors is considerably lower that for the case with two separate fermentations. One of advantages of the SSCF process is that all the pentoses produced during the pretreatment reach the reaction stage increasing the ethanol yield. When separate fermentations are performed, the xylose contained in the medium after washing of solid fraction is not converted to ethanol that explains the reduced yield for the base case and SSF process.

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

In the same way, the implementation of the SSF process undoubtedly allows a reduction in energy needed for the hydrolysis process. The obtained results are comparable with those for continuous cofermentation using a strain capable to assimilate pentoses and hexoses. Again, the separate fermentation scheme gives worse results. For the simulation of the product recovery step, a conventional distillation and azeotropic distillation system was utilized as a base case. This step consists of a distillation column where a 45% (w/w) ethanol is obtained in the distillate followed by a rectification column. The distillate of this column containing 90% (w/w) of ethanol is fed to azeotropic column where benzene is added in that way, that the formation of azeotrope allow the ethanol withdrawal with more than 99% (w/w) purity from the column bottoms. The distillate is directed to a separator where the heterogenous azeotrope is fractioned: one fraction is taken back to azeotropic column and the other one is fed to stripper, where most of water is collected and the distillate is recycled to azeotropic column. Table 2. Effect of feed ethanol concentration on energy costs of distillation and evaporation steps.
FLOWSHEET VARIANT ETHANOL CONCENTRATION BEFORE THE DISTILLATION STEP UNIT ENERGY COSTS FOR DISTILLATION STEP Mcal / L EtOH 18,11 UNIT ENERGY COSTS FOR EVAPORATION STEP Mcal / L EtOH 5,198

% (w/w) Base Case: Dilute acid pretreatment, 3,1% enzymatic hydrolysis, separate hexose and pentose fermentations, azeotropic distillation Dilute acid pretreatment, simultaneous saccharification and 3,3% hexose fermentation (SSF), separate pentose fermentation, azeotropic distillation Dilute acid pretreatment, 6,4% simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation (SSCF), azeotropic distillation Dilute acid pretreatment, simultaneous saccharification and 6,4% cofermentation (SSCF), integrated distillation and pervaporation * Costs include both the distillation and pervaporation steps.

17,22

4,969

17,09

2,069

16,14*

2,069

Due to elevated energy costs of ethanol recovery through distillation is necessary to evaluate those alternatives that permit a relative higher concentration of ethyl alcohol in the feed of the first distillation column. Table 2 shows how this concentration affects the

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

energy demand for distillation step. Its evident that the configurations involving SSCF offer best results because of increased utilization of sugars and their augmented conversion to ethanol. In particular, the energy demand in the distillation step for the base case is 6% greater than for SSCF process with ethanol recovery based on distillation. This fact is remarkable considering that the energy costs in distillation account approximately 50% of total energy costs of the process. The integration of the distillation process with the pervaporation gave good results in terms of saved energy, because of the low operational costs of the pervaporation and the higher yield of dehydrated ethanol characteristic for this process. The comparison between the azeotropic distillation using benzene and a pervaporation system using multiple membranes modules showed that at similar ethanol production rate and quality of the product (99% w/w) the energy costs are approximately 1/5 of that for azeotropic distillation. The energy consumption involves the electricity necessary for maintenance of vacuum conditions and pumping of material flows, the cooling water and the steam. The system operates at 70C. Most data for the simulation were taken from [5]. In the table 2 is observed that if two distillation columns (first distillation column and rectification column) are coupled with the pervaporation, energy demand can be reduced in 10,7% in comparison with the base case and in 6% in comparison with separation based on distillation for the SSCF process. Finally, the total evaporation of stillage demonstrated that this process is highly energy consuming. The integration of the evaporation with the anaerobic digestion showed best results, specially when the wastewater of each step is evaporated and recycled as process water. For theses purposes an intermediate evaporation is required. From the results showed in table 2, its clear again that configurations allowing a higher concentrations of ethanol before the product recovery and effluent treatment steps are more energy saving. In particular, those variants including SSCF required 2,5 times less energy for evaporation than the base case. The obtained evaporated water can be used as process water. It was made the analysis of the effect of water recycling on the energy costs of the entire process. With this purpose, from the multiple simulated configurations two basic configurations were selected. In the first case, the bottoms of rectification column were mixed with the wastewater of centrifuge in order to utilize this combined stream in the washing of pretreated hydrolyzate. This stream contains water and very small amounts of soluble compounds like glucose, xylose and acetic acid. The second case considered, besides the above-mentioned recycled water, the additional use of the evaporated water obtained in the effluent treatment step as process water for the hemicellulose hydrolysis carried out in the pretreatment reactor. The recycling of water has two main goals: reduction of amounts of fresh water utilized in the process and increase of ethanol yield through recycling and more complete utilization of remaining sugars contained in wastewater. Increasing yields lead to reduced energy

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

consumption for producing the same amount of final product. In the table 3 can be observed the effect of sugar content in the recycled water streams on the overall yield of ethanol and energy costs. In addition, the main effluent, the stillage from the first distillation column, resulted more concentrated (10,1% solids) that the stillage corresponding to the base case (5,8% solids) as consequence of the higher amounts of fresh water utilized throughout this process. Therefore, the recycling of water reduces the amount of water to evaporate in the effluent and the cost of treatment of wastewater by anaerobic digestion. In this case, the simulation shows that the energy consumption during the partial evaporation of wastewater for the basic configuration can be reduced through analyzed recycling from 3,976 Mcal/L EtOH until 1,495 Mcal/L EtOH (62,4% reduction). Table 3. Ethanol yield and unit energy costs for some configurations involving recycling of water in comparison with the base case configuration.
Flowsheet Variant Sugar concentration in recycled water for washing g/L Glucose Xylose Sugar concentration in recycled water for pretreatm. reactor g/L Glucose Xylose Ethanol Yield L / Dry wood ton Unit Energy Costs Mcal / L EtOH

Base Case: Dilute acid pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, separate hexose and pentose fermentations, azeotropic distillation Dilute acid pretreatment, simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation (SSCF), azeotropic distillation, recycled water for washing Dilute acid pretreatment, simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation (SSCF), azeotropic distillation, recycled water for washing, recycled water for pretreatment reactor Dilute acid pretreatment, simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation (SSCF), integrated distillation and pervaporation, recycled water for washing, recycled water for pretreatment reactor

308,08

27,82

9,63

6,50

390,25

21,47

9,59

6,74

<0,001

7,01

394,91

21,06

9,59

6,74

<0,001

7,01

395,01

20,11

In order to evaluate the influence of the amount of recycled water for washing of pretreated hydrolyzate, a sensitivity analysis was performed including as well the recycling of water

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

for the pretreatment reactor. It was assumed that the whole stream of bottoms from the rectification column is recycled. A fraction of liquid stream exiting the centrifuge is directed to second and third stages of evaporation and the other is mixed with the bottoms and pumped to the filter for washing. The split fraction of the liquid stream that will undergo evaporation is set to 0,2. For the analysis, this fraction was varied from 0,01 until 0,3. The simulation showed that the unit energy cost slightly decreased at split fraction less than 0,2 as consequence of increased production of ethanol predicted by the model and lower amounts of water to evaporate (see figure 1). At the same time, the mass fraction of ethanol after product recovery is reduced too. Higher values of split fraction imply more expenditures in the evaporation step. However, in this case inhibitory effects due to increased concentration of acetic acid and other inhibitors in the fermentation medium were not taken into account. This is the disadvantage of water recycling.
23,0 22,5 Energy costs [Mcal/L EtOH] 22,0 0,992 21,5 0,9915 21,0 20,5 0 0,05 0,1 0,15 0,2 0,25 0,3 Split Fraction 0,991 0,9905 0,9935 0,993 0,9925 EtOH Mass Fraction

Energy costs

Ethanol Mass Fraction

Figure 1. Influence of split fraction of liquid stream from centrifuge used as recycled water on the unit energy cost of the process and the ethanol mass fraction after product recovery. Process configuration: SSCF with product recovery based on distillation. The above results were expected from the same moment of the design, supported in the assumption that no technological limitations are present for these configurations. But the technology of simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation is not completely developed by far. To consider this fact, some limitations in the proposed technologies were analyzed.

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

When it was considered a 7,6% reduction in the conversion of glucose and a 8,2% reduction in the conversion of xylose during SSCF due to the accumulation of inhibitors as consequence of recycles and culture of more complex fermentation broths, the energy demand increased and ethanol yields decreased linearly (see figure 2). If its considered lower reduction in conversion during SSCF process, other configurations can become suitable. This is the reason for which many configurations not involving simultaneous processes are being designed and studied at pilot plant scale.

405 Ethanol Yield [L/Dry wood ton] 400 395 390 385 380 375 0,75 0,8 0,85 0,9

Xylose Conversion GC = 0,850 GC = 0,900 GC = 0,875 GC = 0,950

Figure 2. Effect of change in glucose and xylose conversion on ethanol yield. Process configuration: SSCF with product recovery based on distillation. GC: Glucose Conversion. The discrete point represents the base case (glucose conversion: 0,92, xylose conversion: 0,85). The decreasing concentration of ethanol in the culture broth leaded to greater energetic costs in the distillation step with the increasing of total costs for ethanol, especially when azeotropic distillation was used. In this point, the energy integration is achieved with good results if the membranes are still being considered with high efficiency. Similarly, if the assumption that the evaporated recycled water does not contain inhibitor for the fermentation process continues being valid, the recycling approach is a source of energy saving in comparison with the total evaporation of the stillage and its combustion for generating steam. CONCLUSIONS The proposed procedure for analyzing the flow sheet configurations for fuel ethanol production demonstrated to be a powerful tool when several options in each process step must be assessed. Additionally, the contribution of each proposed modification can be

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL AND PROCESS ENGINEERING 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic

evaluated in terms of energy. From the obtained information can be deduced significant improvements to the global process. In the biomass-to-ethanol process presented in this work, the performed sensitivity analysis showed that limitations in the emerging technologies play a critical role when it is necessary make decisions about further research at pilot and industrial scale. REFERENCES McAloon A., Taylor F. Yee W., Ibsen K., Wooley R. (2000). Determining the cost of producing ethanol from corn starch and lignocellulosic feedstocks. National renewable Energy Laboratory. Technical Report. 35 p. 2 Nacional Academy of Sciences. (1999). Review of the research strategy for biomassderived transportation fuels. Washington: National Academic Press. 40. 3 Gregg D.J., Boussaid A., Saddler J.N. (1998). Techno-economic evaluation of a generic wood-to-ethanol process: effect of increased cellulose yields and enzyme recycle. Bioresource Technology, 63: 7-12. 4 Wooley R., Ruth M., Sheehan J., Ibsen K., Majdeski H., Galvez A. (1999). Lignocellulosic Biomass to Ethanol Process Design and Economics Utilizing Co-Current Dilute Acid Prehydrolysis and Enzymatic Hydrolysis. Current and Futuristic Scenarios. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Technical Report NREL/TP-580-26157. 123 p. 5 Tsuyomoto M., Teramoto A., Meares P. (1997). Dehydration of ethanol on a pilot-plant scale, using a new type of hollow-fiber membrane. Journal of Membrane Science, 133: 8394.
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