TY - JOUR
T1 - Environmental and Economic Assessment of a Novel Solvolysis-Based Biorefinery Producing Lignin-Derived Marine Biofuel and Cellulosic Ethanol
AU - Obydenkova, Svetlana V.
AU - Defauw, Lucie V. E.
AU - Kouris, Panos D.
AU - Smeulders, David M. J.
AU - Boot, Michael D.
AU - Van Der Meer, Yvonne
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/7/8
Y1 - 2022/7/8
N2 - Methanol is considered to be a viable option for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in shipping, the second-highest emitter after road freight. However, the use of fossil methanol is insufficient to meet climate change targets, while renewable methanol is yet unavailable on a commercial scale. This paper presents a novel biorefinery concept based on biomass solvolysis to produce crude lignin oil (CLO) from forest residues, a drop-in biofuel for methanol-propelled ships, and evaluates its environmental and economic profiles. In the base scenario, CLO can achieve emission saving of 84% GHG compared to fossil alternatives, and a minimum selling price (MSP) of $821 per ton of methanol equivalent (ME), i.e., within the range of the current bio-methanol production costs. The emission of GHGs of co-produced ethanol can be reduced by 67% compared to fossil analogues. The increase of renewable electricity share to 75% is capable of shrinking emissions by 1/5 vs. the base case, while fossil methanol losses, e.g., of that in cellulose pulp, can boost emissions by 63%. Low-pressure steam use in the biomass pretreatment, as well as biorefinery capacity increase by a factor of 2.5, have the greatest potential to reduce MSP of CLO to $530 and $614 per ton of ME, respectively.
AB - Methanol is considered to be a viable option for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in shipping, the second-highest emitter after road freight. However, the use of fossil methanol is insufficient to meet climate change targets, while renewable methanol is yet unavailable on a commercial scale. This paper presents a novel biorefinery concept based on biomass solvolysis to produce crude lignin oil (CLO) from forest residues, a drop-in biofuel for methanol-propelled ships, and evaluates its environmental and economic profiles. In the base scenario, CLO can achieve emission saving of 84% GHG compared to fossil alternatives, and a minimum selling price (MSP) of $821 per ton of methanol equivalent (ME), i.e., within the range of the current bio-methanol production costs. The emission of GHGs of co-produced ethanol can be reduced by 67% compared to fossil analogues. The increase of renewable electricity share to 75% is capable of shrinking emissions by 1/5 vs. the base case, while fossil methanol losses, e.g., of that in cellulose pulp, can boost emissions by 63%. Low-pressure steam use in the biomass pretreatment, as well as biorefinery capacity increase by a factor of 2.5, have the greatest potential to reduce MSP of CLO to $530 and $614 per ton of ME, respectively.
KW - drop-in marine biofuel
KW - life cycle assessment
KW - lignin oil
KW - multi-product biorefinery
KW - techno-economic analysis
U2 - 10.3390/en15145007
DO - 10.3390/en15145007
M3 - Article
SN - 1996-1073
VL - 15
JO - Energies
JF - Energies
IS - 14
M1 - 5007
ER -