Biorefinery Location and Technology Selection Through Supply Chain Optimization

Lignocellulosic biorefineries: A multiscale approach for resource exploitation

Biomass can become the source for chemicals towards a sustainable production system. However, the challenges it presents such as the variety of species, their widespread and sparse availability, and the expensive transportation claims for an integrated approach to design the novel production system. Multiscale approaches have not been properly extended to biorefineryes design and deployment, due to the comprehensive experimental and modelling work they require. A systems perspective provides the systematic framework to analyze the availability and composition of raw materials across regions, how that affects process design, the portfolio of products that can be obtained by evaluating the strong link between the biomass features and the process design. The use of lignocellulosic materials requires for a multidisciplinary work, that must lead to new process engineers with technical competences in biology, biotechnology but also process engineering, mathematics, computer science and social sciences towards a sustainable process/chemical industry.

Logistics and Supply Chain Modelling for the Biobased Economy: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

One way to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change, is for society to move towards a biobased economy, where fossil resources are replaced by biobased ones. This replacement requires the development of biobased supply chains that differ significantly from the conventional supply chain. For example, seasonality and variability of the feedstocks create specific challenges for biobased systems and call for customized solutions for the design and operation of biobased chains. As a result, the modelling efforts to support decision-making processes for biobased logistics and supply chains have some different requirements. This paper presents a systematic literature review on logistics and supply chain modelling studies for the biobased economy published in a period of 2011–2020. The literature analysis shows that most modelling studies for the biobased economy are strategic optimization models aiming to minimize economic impact. As biomass source, forest and agricultural residues are mostly used, and fuel and energy are the most common biobased applications. Modelling strategies, biomass sources and applications are however diversifying, which is what we encourage for future research. Also, not only focusing on economic optimization but also optimizing social and environmental performance is an important future research direction, to deal with the sustainability challenges the world is facing.

Synthesis of European Union Biorefinery Supply Networks Considering Sustainability Objectives

Increasing the use of renewable energy sources is one of the most important goals of energy policies in several countries to build a sustainable energy future. This contribution proposes the synthesis of a biorefinery supply network for a case study of the European Union (EU-27) under several scenarios based on a mathematical programming approach. Several biomass and waste sources, such as grains, waste oils, and lignocellulosics, are proposed to be utilized, and various biofuels including first, second, and third generations are produced such as bioethanol, green gasoline, biodiesel, Fischer Tropsch (FT) diesel, and hydrogen. The aim of this study is to evaluate the capabilities of EU-27 countries to be able to meet the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) target regarding the share of renewable energy in the transport sector by 2030 in each Member State while not compromising the current production of food. A generic mathematical model has been developed for the multi-period optimization of a biorefinery supply network with the objective of maximizing sustainability profit. The solutions obtained show that biomass and waste are promising raw materials to reach and go beyond the EU’s renewable energy target in the transport sector for the year 2030. However, some countries would need to provide additional subsidies for their companies to achieve at least a non-negative economic performance of biofuel production.

The path forward for lignocellulose biorefineries: Bottlenecks, solutions, and perspective on commercialization

Lignocellulose biorefinery encompasses process engineering and biotechnology tools for the processing of lignocellulosic biomass for the manufacturing of bio-based products (such as biofuels, bio-chemicals, biomaterials). While, lignocellulose biorefinery offers clear value proposition, success at industrial level has not been vibrant for the commercial production of renewable chemicals and fuels. This is because of high capital and operating expenditures, irregularities in biomass supply chain, technical process immaturity, and scale up challenges. As a result, commercial production of biochemicals and biofuels with right economics is still lagging behind. To hit the market place, efforts are underway by bulk and specialty chemicals producing companies like DSM (Succinic acid, Cellulosic ethanol), Dow-DuPont (1,3-Propanediol, 1,4-Butanediol), Clariant-Global bioenergies-INEOS (bio-isobutene), Braskem (Ethylene, polypropylene), Raizen, Gran-bio and POET-DSM (Cellulosic ethanol), Amyris (Farnesene), and several other potential players. This paper entails the concept of lignocellulose biorefinery, technical challenges for industrialization of renewable fuels and bulk chemicals and future directions.

Energy Supply Chain Optimization of Hybrid Feedstock Processes: A Review

The economic, environmental, and social performances of energy systems depend on their geographical locations and the surrounding market infrastructure for feedstocks and energy products. Strategic decisions to locate energy conversion facilities must take all upstream and downstream operations into account, prompting the development of supply chain modeling and optimization methods. This article reviews the contributions of energy supply chain studies that include heat, power, and liquid fuels production. Studies are categorized based on specific features of the mathematical model, highlighting those that address energy supply chain models with and without considerations of multiperiod decisions. Studies that incorporate uncertainties are discussed, and opportunities for future research developments are outlined.