30.4 Value Added Products from Lignocellulose and Starchy Residues
467
Table 30.3
Butanol production cost from lignocellulose
and starchy residues.
Feed stock
Production cost (US$/kg)
Glucose
5.33
Corn
1.3
Sago
3.87
Sugarcane
0.62
Barley straw
0.75
Wheat straw
0.69
Corn stover
0.59
Switch grass
0.63
Table 30.4
Economics of butanol production from corn and glycerol.
Corn
Glycerol
Lignocellulose
Plant capacity
115 × 106 kg/year
115 × 106 kg/year
122.26 × 106 kg year
Amount of feedstock
432.33 × 106 kg/year
287.5 × 106 kg/year
450 × 106 kg year
Acetone
34.50 × 106 kg/year
—
36.68 × 106 kg year
Butanol
69.0 × 106 kg/year
89.8 × 106 kg/year
73.36 × 106 kg year
Ethanol
11.50 × 106 kg/year
3.5 × 106 kg/year
12.23 × 106 kg year
1,3-propanediol
—
21.71 × 106 kg/year
—
ABE yield
0.38 g/g
0.4 g/g
0.38 g/g
Plant cost
US$ 65.24 × 106
US$ 48.53 × 106
US$ 63.9 × 106
Cost of feedstock
US$ 73.5 × 106/year
US$ 115 × 106/year
US$ 29.93 × 106
Selling cost of butanol
US$ 1.31/kg
US$ 0.23/kg
US$ 1.10/kg
study has shown that utilization of induction technique in pretreatment utilizes less
energy and cost compared to conventional heating [28]. Channelizing the effluent
acid and use of ionic liquid in the pretreatment process reduces the need for costly
enzymes thus reducing the overall production cost and equipment cost.
The economy of the ABE process can be improved by integrating the process with
product recovery. Qureshi and Singh [1] have combined the ABE model with contin-
uous product recovery to research the model economy. The total capital investment
was US$ 1.2 million with total production cost reaching up to US$ 1.47 million/year
for 1.94 million liter of butanol production with break-even of US$ 0.74/l. It was well
observed that the break-even for this process was reduced to US$ 0.44/l by expand-
ing the plant capacity to handle 6000 m3/day of feedstock. This concludes that the
cost of feedstock and plant scale directly affects the overall economy of biobutanol
production.