IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v92y2016icp333-345.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Feasible process development and techno-economic evaluation of paper sludge to bioethanol conversion: South African paper mills scenario

Author

Listed:
  • Robus, Charles L.L.
  • Gottumukkala, Lalitha Devi
  • van Rensburg, Eugéne
  • Görgens, Johann F.

Abstract

Paper sludge samples collected from recycling mills exhibited high ash content in the range of 54.59%–65.50% and glucose concentrations between 21.97% and 31.11%. Washing the sludge reduced the total ash content to between 10.7% and 19.31% and increased the concentration of glucose, xylose and lignin. Samples were screened for ethanol production and fed-batch simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) was optimised for the washed samples that resulted in highest and lowest ethanol concentrations. Maximum ethanol concentrations of 57.31 g/L and 47.72 g/L (94.07% and 85.34% of the maximum theoretical yield, respectively) was predicted for high and low fermentative potential samples, respectively, and was experimentally achieved with 1% deviation. A generic set of process conditions were established for the conversion of high ash-containing paper sludge to ethanol. Techno-economic analysis based on three different revenue scenarios, together with Monte Carlo analysis revealed 95% probability of achieving IRR values in excess of 25% at a paper sludge feed rate of 15 t/d. Feed rates of 30 t/d and 50 t/d exhibited a cumulative probability of 100%. This study presents the technical feasibility and economic viability of paper mills expansion towards bioethanol production from paper sludge.

Suggested Citation

  • Robus, Charles L.L. & Gottumukkala, Lalitha Devi & van Rensburg, Eugéne & Görgens, Johann F., 2016. "Feasible process development and techno-economic evaluation of paper sludge to bioethanol conversion: South African paper mills scenario," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 333-345.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:92:y:2016:i:c:p:333-345
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2016.02.017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148116301185
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2016.02.017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chen, Hui & Venditti, Richard & Gonzalez, Ronalds & Phillips, Richard & Jameel, Hasan & Park, Sunkyu, 2014. "Economic evaluation of the conversion of industrial paper sludge to ethanol," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 281-290.
    2. Amigun, Bamikole & Petrie, Daniel & Görgens, Johann, 2011. "Economic risk assessment of advanced process technologies for bioethanol production in South Africa: Monte Carlo analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 3178-3186.
    3. Richardson, James W. & Lemmer, Wessel J. & Outlaw, Joe L., 2007. "Bio-ethanol Production from Wheat in the Winter Rainfall Region of South Africa: A Quantitative Risk Analysis," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 10(2), pages 1-24.
    4. Naik, S.N. & Goud, Vaibhav V. & Rout, Prasant K. & Dalai, Ajay K., 2010. "Production of first and second generation biofuels: A comprehensive review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 578-597, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Burman, Nicholas W. & Sheridan, Craig M. & Harding, Kevin G., 2020. "Feasibility assessment of the production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic biomass pretreated with acid mine drainage (AMD)," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 1148-1155.
    2. Furszyfer Del Rio, Dylan D. & Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Griffiths, Steve & Bazilian, Morgan & Kim, Jinsoo & Foley, Aoife M. & Rooney, David, 2022. "Decarbonizing the pulp and paper industry: A critical and systematic review of sociotechnical developments and policy options," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    3. Zaman Sajid & Asma Javaid, 2018. "A Stochastic Approach to Energy Policy and Management: A Case Study of the Pakistan Energy Crisis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-18, September.
    4. Bousios, Spyridon & Worrell, Ernst, 2017. "Towards a Multiple Input-Multiple Output paper mill: Opportunities for alternative raw materials and sidestream valorisation in the paper and board industry," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 218-232.
    5. Alkasrawi, Malek & Al-Othman, Amani & Tawalbeh, Muhammad & Doncan, Shona & Gurram, Raghu & Singsaas, Eric & Almomani, Fares & Al-Asheh, Sameer, 2021. "A novel technique of paper mill sludge conversion to bioethanol toward sustainable energy production: Effect of fiber recovery on the saccharification hydrolysis and fermentation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zabed, H. & Sahu, J.N. & Suely, A. & Boyce, A.N. & Faruq, G., 2017. "Bioethanol production from renewable sources: Current perspectives and technological progress," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 475-501.
    2. Jagtap, Sharad P. & Pawar, Anand N. & Lahane, Subhash, 2020. "Improving the usability of biodiesel blend in low heat rejection diesel engine through combustion, performance and emission analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 628-644.
    3. Filimonau, Viachaslau & Högström, Michaela, 2017. "The attitudes of UK tourists to the use of biofuels in civil aviation: An exploratory study," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 84-94.
    4. Atadashi, I.M. & Aroua, M.K. & Abdul Aziz, A.R. & Sulaiman, N.M.N., 2011. "Membrane biodiesel production and refining technology: A critical review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(9), pages 5051-5062.
    5. Bharathiraja, B. & Jayamuthunagai, J. & Sudharsanaa, T. & Bharghavi, A. & Praveenkumar, R. & Chakravarthy, M. & Yuvaraj, D., 2017. "Biobutanol – An impending biofuel for future: A review on upstream and downstream processing tecniques," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 68(P1), pages 788-807.
    6. Arnold, Uwe & Yildiz, Özgür, 2015. "Economic risk analysis of decentralized renewable energy infrastructures – A Monte Carlo Simulation approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 227-239.
    7. Geraili, A. & Sharma, P. & Romagnoli, J.A., 2014. "Technology analysis of integrated biorefineries through process simulation and hybrid optimization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 145-159.
    8. Mao, Guozhu & Zou, Hongyang & Chen, Guanyi & Du, Huibin & Zuo, Jian, 2015. "Past, current and future of biomass energy research: A bibliometric analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 1823-1833.
    9. Yang, Jing & Zhang, Zhiyong & Hong, Ming & Yang, Mingwan & Chen, Jiayu, 2020. "An oligarchy game model for the mobile waste heat recovery energy supply chain," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    10. Marietta Markiewicz & Łukasz Muślewski, 2019. "The Impact of Powering an Engine with Fuels from Renewable Energy Sources including its Software Modification on a Drive Unit Performance Parameters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-16, November.
    11. Bergthorson, Jeffrey M. & Thomson, Murray J., 2015. "A review of the combustion and emissions properties of advanced transportation biofuels and their impact on existing and future engines," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1393-1417.
    12. Rodriguez, Cristina & Alaswad, A. & Benyounis, K.Y. & Olabi, A.G., 2017. "Pretreatment techniques used in biogas production from grass," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 68(P2), pages 1193-1204.
    13. Iraklis Zahos-Siagos & Vlasios Karathanassis & Dimitrios Karonis, 2018. "Exhaust Emissions and Physicochemical Properties of n -Butanol/Diesel Blends with 2-Ethylhexyl Nitrate (EHN) or Hydrotreated Used Cooking Oil (HUCO) as Cetane Improvers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-20, December.
    14. Navas-Anguita, Zaira & García-Gusano, Diego & Iribarren, Diego, 2019. "A review of techno-economic data for road transportation fuels," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 11-26.
    15. Kargbo, Hannah & Harris, Jonathan Stuart & Phan, Anh N., 2021. "“Drop-in” fuel production from biomass: Critical review on techno-economic feasibility and sustainability," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    16. Goh, Brandon Han Hoe & Ong, Hwai Chyuan & Cheah, Mei Yee & Chen, Wei-Hsin & Yu, Kai Ling & Mahlia, Teuku Meurah Indra, 2019. "Sustainability of direct biodiesel synthesis from microalgae biomass: A critical review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 59-74.
    17. Phanankosi Moyo & Mahluli Moyo & Donatus Dube & Oswell Rusinga, 2013. "Biofuel Policy as a Key Driver for Sustainable Development in the Biofuel Sector: The Missing Ingredient in Zimbabwe’s Biofuel Pursuit," Modern Applied Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(1), pages 1-36, February.
    18. Asci, Serhat & VanSickle, John J. & Cantliffe, Daniel J., 2014. "Risk in Investment Decision Making and Greenhouse Tomato Production Expansion in Florida," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1-26, November.
    19. Ko, Ja Kyong & Lee, Jae Hoon & Jung, Je Hyeong & Lee, Sun-Mi, 2020. "Recent advances and future directions in plant and yeast engineering to improve lignocellulosic biofuel production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    20. Hívila M. P. Marreiro & Rogério S. Peruchi & Riuzuani M. B. P. Lopes & Silvia L. F. Andersen & Sayonara A. Eliziário & Paulo Rotella Junior, 2021. "Empirical Studies on Biomass Briquette Production: A Literature Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-40, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:92:y:2016:i:c:p:333-345. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.