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Comparative techno‐economic analysis and reviews of n‐butanol production from corn grain and corn stover
Author(s) -
Tao Ling,
He Xin,
Tan Eric C. D.,
Zhang Min,
Aden Andy
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
biofuels, bioproducts and biorefining
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.931
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1932-1031
pISSN - 1932-104X
DOI - 10.1002/bbb.1462
Subject(s) - corn stover , cellulosic ethanol , raw material , butanol , stover , biofuel , yield (engineering) , microbiology and biotechnology , biomass (ecology) , production (economics) , pulp and paper industry , ethanol fuel , fermentation , environmental science , economics , engineering , agronomy , chemistry , cellulose , food science , ethanol , materials science , microeconomics , biology , organic chemistry , crop , metallurgy
This work presents a detailed review and comparative analysis of the process design and economics of n‐butanol production using corn grain and corn stover. This includes reviewing the most recent n‐butanol technologies; demonstrating the impact of key parameters (e.g. plant capacity, raw material pricing, yield) on the overall n‐butanol process economics; and comparing how cellulosic biomass conversion technologies and challenges differ from traditional sugar‐based n‐butanol conversion technology. A major challenge of n‐butanol production is the low n‐butanol yield (compared to ethanol), resulting in higher production costs. However, recent research efforts have achieved significant yield improvements using a combination of genetic engineering, fermentation techniques, and integrated process development using continuous fermentation with online stripping to remove n‐butanol during fermentation. This study presents the advances in n‐butanol research for both sugar‐based (corn) and cellulosic (corn stover) feedstocks, and also provides a comparison of overall process technologies and process economics. In addition, the results of a sensitivity analysis comparing various technologies, sugar yields, and coproduct distributions are discussed in order to provide research guidance. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd