Thermoeconomic design of biomass biochemical conversion technologies for advanced fuel, heat and power production

The current work addresses the design and assessment of different biomass conversion pathways based on anaerobic digestion for the efficient transformation of the raw materials to a variety of products, including bio-SNG, heat and power. Using a generic superstructure-based approach, various conversion pathways can be synthesized in the context of a MILP optimization problem that aims to minimize the total process cost. A comprehensive methodology is utilized, able to produce a large variety of process alternatives. Heat integration is employed among all designed cases to best exploit the process thermal streams and minimize the energetic needs. Four indicative flowsheet designs are presented and assessed here, regarding their energetic consumption as well as their associated revenues.