Enhancement and improvement of biofuel production processes

目前，世界正在见证使用新的“生物炼油”技术生产化学品的重大转变。事实上，生物精炼将有助于将食品整合到工业加工中。例如，谷物可用于生产食品，而作物残渣、纤维副产品和其他纤维素材料可用于工业动力、生物化学品和燃料。只有通过这些综合加工厂，以生物为基础的工业部门才能在不增加粮食成本和转移农业生产的情况下扩大其主要目标。这类产品是生物乙醇和生物丁醇，它们是可再生和可持续的能源，可能会显著减少污染。建议研究显著降低主要由纤维素材料生产的生物燃料的生产成本的各种方法。 生产生物乙醇的很大一部分成本是因为从发酵液中分离乙醇需要很高的能量。乙醇的最终浓度通常非常低，这一事实使这个问题变得更加复杂。对于生物丁醇，浓度甚至更低。在这项研究计划中，建议研究各种发酵和混合分离(吸附、膜、去脂醇)策略，以解决低浓度生物酒精的困难。将使用最先进的工艺合成、集成和优化来设计出可能的最佳乙醇生产流程图。许多方案将完全从技术和经济角度进行评估。 大量的研究生和本科生将参加这个项目，并将接触到生物乙醇和生物丁醇生产工厂的各个方面。

The world is currently witnessing a significant shift in the production of chemicals using new "biorefinery" technologies. Indeed, biorefinery will contribute to the integration of food into industrial processing. For instance, cereals can be used to produce food, whereas crop residues, fibrous byproducts, and other cellulosic materials can serve for industrial power, biochemicals, and fuels. It is only through these integrated processing plants that the biobased industrial sector will expand without increasing the cost of food and diverting agricultural production from its primary goal. Such products are bioethanol and biobutanol, which are renewable and sustainable energy sources, may significantly reduce pollution. It is proposed to investigate various ways of significantly reducing the production cost of biofuel produced mainly from cellulosic materials. A major portion of the cost to produce bioethanol is due to the high energy requirement for separating ethanol from the fermentation broth. This problem is compounded by the fact that the final ethanol concentration is commonly very low. For biobutanol, the concentration is even lower. In this research program, it is proposed to investigate various fermentation and hybrid separation (adsorption, membrane, dephlegmator) strategies to address the difficulties of low bioalcohol concentrations. State-of-the-art process synthesis, integration, and optimization will be used to devise the best possible ethanol production flow sheets. Numerous scenarios will be assessed completely from both a technological and economic point of view. A good number of graduate and undergraduate students will take part in this program and will be exposed to the various facets of bioethanol and biobutanol production plants.