Modeling and optimization of a bioethanol production facility
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abstract
The optimal bioethanol production plant capacity and configuration based on currently available technology for all the processing sections involved was studied. A systematic method was utilized, which involves the development of a superstructure for the overall technology selection, process flowsheet development, and simulation as well as mathematical model development for each processing step. The optimality of each processing pathway was determined via an overall economic evaluation. The developed optimization model was also designed to incorporate various biomass feedstocks as well as realistic upper and lower limit equipment sizes to ensure pragmatism of the work. The criterion for optimization was minimum ethanol price. The secondary objective attempts to describe the seasonal variation of biomass feedstock via mathematical modeling. This simplified model was then incorporated into the overall model and economical evaluation was performed for minimum ethanol selling price and optimal plant capacity. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 2012 AIChE Spring National Meeting and 8th Global Congress on Process Safety (Houston, TX 4/1-5/2012).
