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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BABET-REAL5 (New technology and strategy for a large and sustainable deployment of second generation biofuel in rural areas)

Teaser

Summary

The business model currently developed for the production of 2G ethanol is similar to 1G: large plants with annual production capacities up to 100,000 m3. Such high production rates require high capital investment and huge amounts of lignocellulosic biomasses concentrated in small catchment areas (up to 200-300,000 t per year). With such conditions, opportunities for a large deployment of plants in most rural areas are scarce. On the technical point of view, one of the main barriers for 2G ethanol to reach favourable environmental and economic conditions is the requirement for a special pretreatment of the lignocellulosic matrix to liberate the monomeric sugars. In the current state-of-the-art, this step is a complex operation which increases the capital and operational expenditures, and the environmental impacts.
The main concept of the project BABET-REAL5 relies on a business model of small-scale industrial units processing small quantities of lignocellulosic biomasses (as low as 30,000 t equivalent dry biomass per year). This model is more favourable for regions that cannot provide high amounts of concentrated biomasses, and for rural development, decentralized energy production & the autonomy of the territories.
For such small-scale plants, a new process able to run all the operations for the pretreatment of the biomass in one-stage-reactor will be developed during the project. The pretreatment process can be directly coupled to the bioreactor running simultaneously the productions of sugars and ethanol This set-up is the most integrated and compact solution for the production of 2G bioethanol.
Besides the technical development, investigations of potential lignocellulosic feedstock in Argentina, France, Germany and Uruguay will be performed. Selected sustainable feedstock will serve as the basis to develop business cases after the project in the said regions.
So the objectives of the project are threefold: 1) Develop the new process to TRL5 and demonstrate techno-economical and environmental performances, 2) Identify feedstock with sustainable and reliable supply conditions and 3) Provide all the necessary data for the evaluation of the business cases.

Work performed

Objective 1: during period 1 the operating conditions of the new pretreatment of the biomass had been reviewed at laboratory scale with the objective to reduce costs and environmental impacts. During period 2, the objective was to improve the bioconversion performances and the production of ethanol, and to run the processes with different biomasses. New in-house enzymes able to adapt to the biomasses and to boost the production of pentose sugar, and new in-house yeast strains able to ferment hexose and pentose sugars at the same time have been developed. These new enzymes and yeasts will be integrated and tested in the new processes during period 3. The results already achieved with commercial enzymatic cocktails and co-fermenting yeast are encouraging. Saccharification yields are in the range of the expected performances. The fermentation can be run under Simultaneous Saccharification CoFermentation (SSCF). With such production of sugars and fermentation conditions, the ethanol concentrations in the bioreactor are already in the range of the expected results. The ethanol production can be improved after mitigating some inhibition effects on the co-fermenting yeast. All the tested lignocellulosic biomasses from crops and agro-industrial residues (straws, bagasses, corn cob) are in the same range of performances. Woody lignocellulosic residues from the eucalyptus forest exploitation are more difficult to process and supplementary trials will be performed during period 3 to try improving the results. The economic and environmental studies have been performed with plant engineering and Life Cycle Assessment models of units processing 30,000 tons equivalent dry biomass per year. The economic performances need to be improved and solutions have been identified to reduce costs notably on the consumption of heat and water. The energy efficiency in the plant has reached the set objective and the GHG emission is getting close to the requirements of the EU directive 2009/28/EC.
Objective 2: in period 2 sustainable amounts of biomasses concentrated in small-catchment areas (50 km radius) have been identified in four regions: south of France, state of Bavaria in Germany, Argentina and Uruguay. The studies confirmed that the net available amounts are significantly reduced from the theoretical potential after taking into account the requirements for soil maintenance, the losses during harvesting, the competitive uses and long-term risks associated to the climate change. Except for Argentina where intensive cultivation of sugar cane and corn provides large amounts of crop residues, in the other regions the identified feedstock: corn stover and wheat chaffs in France, corn stover and wheat straw in Germany and eucalyptus forest residues in Uruguay, are much smaller in the range of 100,000 tons or less per year. These later cases are more favourable to the implementation of small-scale industrial units as targeted in the project.
Objective 3: the study of four business cases based on the selected biomass feedstock has started during period 2. Most of the data related to the national/local conditions for the implementation of 2G bioethanol plants have been investigated and collected by the partners in the four selected regions. As expected, the conditions vary from country to country for both the exportation and commercialisation of the products (bioethanol and biomethane) and importation of the facilities and raw materials. For instance, biomasses are generally cheaper to purchase in South America but the exportation of biomethane is more favourable in Europe. During period 3, these data will be implemented in the economical and environmental industrial models to evaluate the viability of the business cases.

Final results

The state of the art for the production of 2G ethanol has progressed with the development and improvement of new concepts expected to be more favourable to a large deployment of small-scale industrial plants. If the techno-economical and environmental performances are reached and the selected business cases are viable, new opportunities of socio-economical development in rural areas in Europe and overseas can raise.
During the project, all the results are discussed with a representative panel of experts selected in the seven European and Latin American countries of the project in the fields of agriculture, biomass valorisation & bioconversion, bioenergy and/or biofuel production and energy & environment management, forming the so-called USAB (User and Stakeholder Advisory Board).
During period 3, workshops will be organised in the regions of the business cases to draw the attention and interest of a larger audience of local/national potential users and stakeholders, and to set a favourable ground for the exploitation of results after the project.