Munich Personal RePEc Archive Design, Sustainability Analysis and Multiobjective Optimisation of Ethanol Production via Syngas Fermentation Michailos, Stavros and Parker, David and Webb, Colin School of Chemical Engineering Applied Chemistry, Aston University, School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester 27 December 2017 Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/87640/ MPRA Paper No. 87640, posted 04 Jul 2018 20:11 UTC Design, sustainability analysis and multiobjective optimisation of ethanol production via syngas fermentation Stavros Michailos * [a], David Parker [b], Colin Webb [c] aSchool of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, Aston University, Aston Express Way, Birmingham B4 7ET bSchool of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter, EX4 4QD, UK cSchool of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK *Corresponding Author E-mail address:
[email protected] (S. Michailos) Keywords: second generation ethanol, syngas fermentation, sustainability analysis, process simulation, multiobjective optimisation Abstract. Ethanol production from non-edible feedstock has received significant attention over the past two decades. The utilisation of agricultural residues within the biorefinery concept can positively contribute to the renewable production of fuels. To this end, this study proposes the utilisation of bagasse in a hybrid conversion route for ethanol production. The main steps of the process are the gasification of the raw material followed by syngas fermentation to ethanol. Aspen plus was utilised to rigorously design the biorefinery coupled with Matlab to perform process optimisation. Based on the simulations, ethanol can be produced at a rate of 283 L per dry tonne of bagasse, achieving energy efficiency of 43% and according to the environmental analysis, is associated with low CO2 emissions.