Industrial Crops & Products 133 (2019) 259–268

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Industrial Crops & Products

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop

Techno-economic analysis of product biorefineries utilizing sugarcane T

lignocelluloses: Xylitol, citric acid and glutamic acid scenarios annexed to
sugar mills with electricity co-production
H.M. Raoul Özüdoğru, M. Nieder-Heitmann, K.F. Haigh, J.F. Görgens
⁎

Department of Process Engineering, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland, 7602, South Africa

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The profitability of biorefinery scenarios utilizing sugarcane lignocellulose (bagasse and harvesting residues),
Techno-economic analysis annexed to an existing sugar mill for the co-production of electricity and bioproducts was investigated.
Xylitol Biorefinery scenarios for xylitol, citric acid or glutamic acid production, each in combination with electricity,
Citric acid were simulated in Aspen Plus® to generate mass and energy balances, and perform economic analyses. The
Glutamic acid
profitability was compared to a combined heat and power (CHP) plant baseline scenario that solely combusts
Biorefinery
Co-generation
biomass for electricity co-production. Scenario 2, citric acid and electricity co-production was not profitable at a
Sugarcane bagasse selling price of 680 $/t citric acid. However Scenario 1, xylitol and electricity co-production, and Scenario 3 for
glutamic acid and electricity co-production, both demonstrated economic feasibility with IRR’s of 12.3% and
31.5% for a selling price of 3000 $/t and 3625 $/t, respectively. These IRR values exceeded the baseline CHP
plant IRR of 10.3% and hurdle rate of 9.7%.

1. Introduction
The South African (SA) sugar milling industry is currently experi-
encing declining profit margins due to various factors including lower
crop yields caused by severe drought conditions, increased labour costs,
aging infrastructure and a decrease in global sugar prices (Biddy et al.,
2016). In addition, a new sugar tax in SA was introduced on 1 April
2018, which is aimed at reducing non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
that have been linked to excess sugar consumption, which would con-
sequently reduce demand for sugar-based products and further threaten
profit margins made by the SA sugar industry (A. Dávila et al., 2016;
Singh et al., 2015).
Sugar milling produces large amounts of agro-processing waste in
the form of bagasse, a fibrous pulp produced after extracting the juice
from sugarcane, as well as tops and leaf residues from harvesting (i.e.
“trash”) (Lavarack et al., 2002). A total of 6.3–8.16 million tonnes of
bagasse is produced annually in South Africa (Mashoko et al., 2013). To
mitigate the costs associated with collecting and transporting the trash,
it is typically left in the field or burnt before harvest (Smithers, 2014).
Burning cane releases large amounts of gaseous emissions and soot
particles into the air that can enter the lungs of labourers and neigh-
bouring communities in the area and lead to respiratory health pro-
blems (Leal et al., 2013). In addition, existing sugar mills typically burn
sugarcane bagasse and trash in low pressure boilers, both for electricity
and steam production, and disposal (Dias et al., 2011). However, sugar
mills may achieve economic viability by expanding their product range
to include alternative fuels or chemical products from the valorisation
of these wastes.
Sugarcane lignocellulose, a second generation (2 G) biomass source, is
one of the most promising renewable biomass sources for the emerging
global bio-economy due to its relative abundance, lower cost, and reduced
competition for land use in comparison to first generation (1 G) feedstocks
that are typically grown on land allocated for food production (Farzad
et al., 2017; Quintero et al., 2013). Lignocellulose has been studied ex-
tensively for the production of bio based fuels such as ethanol and butanol
(Bensah and Mensah, 2013; Canilha et al., 2012; Chandel et al., 2012;
Humbird, 2011; Sun and Cheng, 2002). However, recent studies have
increasingly been exploring the conversion of lignocellulosic feedstocks to
bioproducts (Farzad et al., 2017; Görgens et al., 2016; Mountraki et al.,
2017; Yamaguchi et al., 2016; Zhou et al., 2017). Potential bioproducts
have previously been selected based on potential application, demand and
technological production maturity (Davis et al., 2015; Werpy and
Petersen, 2004). Of these, xylitol, citric acid and glutamic acid has been
selected for further consideration as discussed below.
The sugar-alcohol, xylitol, was listed as a promising candidate due
to its unique health benefits and numerous uses within the food and

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jgorgens@sun.ac.za (J.F. Görgens).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2019.03.015
Received 19 November 2018; Received in revised form 29 January 2019; Accepted 4 March 2019
0926-6690/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V.
H.M.R. Özüdoğru, et al.
pharmaceutical sector, as well as being a chemical building block
(Mohamad et al., 2015; Werpy and Petersen, 2004). Therefore a strong
demand for xylitol exists, with global demand estimated at 125
000 tonnes per annum, with a bulk market price ranging from $4.5–5.5
per kg (Ravella et al., 2012). However, recent reports estimate a global
market of 190 900 tonnes per annum, with market demand expected to
grow annually by 5.7% and reach 266 500 tonnes per annum by 2022
(Sarah Smith, 2014). Xylitol can be produced through fermentation
with Candida yeasts or the catalytic hydrogenation of xylose over a
Raney-Nickel catalyst. However, chemical conversion was shown to
have a higher productivity than bioconversion at 0.85 kg Xylitol crys-
tals per kg xylose compared to 0.73 kg Xylitol crystals (Mountraki et al.,
2017).
Citric acid (CA) is used across different sectors, including the food,
pharmaceutical, cosmetic, detergent and cleaning industries
(Angumeenal and Venkappayya, 2013; Ciriminna et al., 2017;
Vandenberghe et al., 1999). The current global demand of CA is esti-
mated to be 2–2.3 million tonnes per annum with 4% annual growth
(Ciriminna et al., 2017). Future demand is expected to reach 2.8 million
tonnes per annum by 2022 (Global Market Insights, 2016). Citric acid is
produced commercially from starch through fermentation (bioconver-
sion) using mainly Candida sp. (Anastassiadis and Rehm, 2006) or As-
pergillus niger (Hou and Bao, 2018).
Finally, glutamic acid (GA) is an amino acid with applications
within the food and pharmaceutical industry (Heys and Ashkanani,
1999; Kumar et al., 2014). It has a current estimated global market size
of 2.9 million tonnes per annum and an annual growth of 7.5%. GA is
estimated to reach a global demand of 4 million tons per annum by
2023 (Global Market Insights, 2016). Although amino acids can be
produced by protein and enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation and che-
mical synthesis, in recent years it has been produced predominantly
through fermentation using strains such as Corynebacterium and Brevi-
bacterium (Pal et al., 2016).
The future economic competitiveness and environmental sustain-
ability within the SA sugar milling industry could be ensured by va-
lorising the lignocellulosic residues (bagasse and trash) to produce
bioproducts in a biorefinery. The biorefinery and electricity co-gen-
eration is annexed to an existing sugar mill (Ali Mandegari et al., 2017a;
Nieder-Heitmann et al., 2018). The aim of this study is to investigate
whether converting sugarcane bagasse and trash to either xylitol, glu-
tamic acid or citric acid with electricity will result in a profitable
biorefinery scenario to ensure the economic competitiveness of the SA
sugar industry.
2. Methodology
The product biorefinery scenarios were simulated using Aspen Plus®
V8.8 to determine mass and energy flows as well as utility consumption
for the techno-economic analyses. Suitable process methods, conditions
and unit configurations were determined from literature. The four
scenarios evaluated were Scenario 1: Xylitol and electricity production,
Scenario 2: Citric acid and electricity production, Scenario 3: Glutamic
acid and electricity production and Baseline scenario: Electricity pro-
duction only in a combined heat and power (CHP) plant.
2.1. Biorefinery concept
The Aspen Plus® process flow sheets for the baseline and respective
bioproduct scenarios are provided in Fig. 1. Biorefinery production
steps, including ancillary equipment and storage sections, are divided
into process areas and labelled from area 100-900. Each biorefinery
scenario, including the baseline scenario, processes a total of
113.5 tonnes of raw sugarcane bagasse and trash feed per hour (i.e.
65 t/h dry mass). This is based on a typical South African sugar mill
processing 300 t/h sugar cane (Görgens et al., 2016). The feedstock
characterisation is provided in the Supplementary information. The
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Industrial Crops & Products 133 (2019) 259–268
polysaccharide and moisture content of the lignocellulosic feed for this
study was specified for typical South African sugarcane mills based on
local cultivars according to previous studies (Dias et al., 2012; Farzad
et al., 2017; Petersen et al., 2014).
For each scenario a portion of raw feed is bypassed to the CHP
plant’s boiler where it is combusted for steam and electricity production
to power both the biorefinery and the annexed sugar mill for energy
self-sufficiency (Nieder-Heitmann et al., 2018). The sugar mill requires
120 t/h steam to meet its process heating needs and for electricity
production in the existing back pressure steam turbines (Farzad et al.,
2015). An iterative procedure was required to determine the optimum
bypass ratio for each scenario, by altering the bypass ratio until the
biorefinery’s steam and electricity utility requirements were met. A
limited amount of heat integration was carried out using engineering
judgement on the principle that it could only be carried out within
process areas for a conceptual level study.
2.2. Catalytic and bioconversion technology
The catalyst selection in Scenario 1, for the xylitol-electricity bior-
efinery scenario, was made according to substrate-to-product conver-
sion, product selectivity as well as cost per unit mass of catalyst. When
making a comparison among a range of catalysts, the Raney-nickel
(Raney-Ni) catalyst provides a xylose conversion of 96.9% but overall
has a lower xylitol selectivity and yield, and a higher arabinitol se-
lectivity and yield, compared to the other catalysts, although the dif-
ference is marginal (Yadav et al., 2012). In terms of cost per unit mass
of catalyst, the Raney-Ni catalyst retails lowest at $18.25/kg. Ruthe-
nium and particularly catalysts with traces of titanium (Ti) are priced
far higher (Yadav et al., 2012). The Raney-Ni catalyst is currently
employed in chemical xylitol production and has the lowest cost of all
the catalysts mentioned while still achieving relatively high conversions
and xylitol selectivities (Melaja and Hamalainen, 1977; Saari et al.,
2010).
The microorganisms Candida oleophila ATCC 20177 and
Brevibacterium divaricatum NRRL 8–231 were selected for CA and GA
production, respectively (Anastassiadis and Rehm, 2006; Nakazawa
et al., 1996). Selection of microorganisms for these scenarios was based
on a normalized desirability score (DS).The DS ranges from 0 to 1 and is
weighted as a percentage (%w) according to the micro-organisms’ final
product yield, concentration and productivity defined by Eq. (1) below
as per data normalisation and standardisation procedures. Each data
point (Xi) for each of the parameters (yield (40%), concentration (40%)
or productivity(20%)) were normalised against unity (Xi, 0 to 1) ac-
cording to Eq. (2), where Xmax and Xmin represent the maxima and
minima among all data points.
{(x yield . %wyield) + (xconc . %wconc ) + (x prod . %wprod ))
DS =
100 % (1)
Xi Xmin
Xi 0 1 =
(Xmax Xmin ) (2)
2.3. Scenario descriptions
2.3.1. Baseline: combined heat and power plant
In the baseline scenario, 100% of the raw sugarcane lignocelluloses
feed was transported via a conveyor belt to the CHP plant boiler’s
combustion chamber. The RSTOIC Aspen Plus® block was used to model
the combustion of the CHP baseline’s boiler. Flue gases released during
combustion were sent to a dust cyclone and baghouse filter to remove
any ash and solid particles. The high pressure steam from the boiler
entered the first stage of the condensing extraction turbine (CEST) and
left at 2.84 MPa. An intermediate steam stream was taken from the
CEST middle section and mixed with water in a de-superheating station
to form 120 t/h steam required for the annexed sugar mill.
H.M.R. Özüdoğru, et al. Industrial Crops & Products 133 (2019) 259–268

2.3.2. Scenario 1: xylitol and electricity co-production
The xylitol biorefinery has six process areas, namely pretreatment
(area 100), detoxification (area 200), catalytic reaction (area 300),
purification (area 400), the CHP plant (area 500) and waste water
treatment (WWT, area 600).
The lignocellulose feed for xylitol production was pre-treated with
dilute acid (DA) at 130 °C for 30 min and maintained at a solid to liquid
ratio of 1:4 to form a liquid hemicellulose hydrolysate fraction and an
insoluble cellulose and lignin (cellulignin) fraction (Moutta et al.,
2012). The insoluble cellulignin was separated from the hemicellulose
hydrolysate and sent to area 500 along with the bypassed lignocellulose
for steam and electricity production in the CHP plant. The soluble
hemicellulose hydrolysate fraction was thereafter dosed with calcium
oxide (CaO) to neutralise the sulphuric acid used during DA treatment
and to prevent any possible down-stream catalyst deactivation.
The neutralised xylose rich hemicellulose hydrolysate was sent
through two detoxification steps, namely evaporation and activated
carbon adsorption, to remove pretreatment inhibitors acetic acid, fur-
fural and hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) (Nieder-Heitmann et al.,
2018). Then, ion-exchange chromatography was used to concentrate
the xylose and remove as much competing sugars as possible, so as to
achieve a xylose concentration in the reactor feed of 78 wt.% (dry basis)
(Melaja and Hamalainen, 1977).
The xylose-rich reactor feed entered the catalytic reactors, each
loaded with solid Raney-Ni catalyst equivalent to 5 wt.% of the xylose
(Mikkola et al., 1999). The reactors were pressurised using compressed
hydrogen gas to 40 atm (4.05 MPa) for 2.5 h at 135 °C, where xylose
was hydrogenated to xylitol and a small fraction to arabinitol (Melaja

Fig. 1. Flowsheets of Aspen Plus® simulations for integrated product biorefineries. Fig. 1a: baseline scenario: annexed CHP plant; Fig. 1b: Scenario 1, catalytic xylitol-
electricity co- production; Fig. 1c: Scenario 2, fermentative CA-electricity co-production utilising solvent extraction, Fig. 1d: Scenario 3, fermentative GA-electricity
co-production using membrane- integrated separation.

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Fig. 1. (continued)

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Table 1 Table 2
Variable consumable operating costs for Scenario 1 (Xylitol), Scenario 2 (CA) Main Economic Cash Flow Sheet Parameters (Nieder-Heitmann et al.,
and Scenario 3 (GA) indicated by an (x) when the cost is applicable. 2018).
Consumables Price ($/ton) 1 (Xylitol) 2 (CA) 3 (GA) Parameter Value
2016
Operating Hours (h) 6480a
Activated carbon $600.00a x x x Cost year for analysis 2016
Process water (H2O $/kL) $0.00b x x x Depreciation Type Linear
Feedstock (Bagasse and trash) $11.00c x x x Salvage value ($) 0
Sulphuric acid (H2SO4) $112.00d x x x Annual Depreciation 20 %
Ammonia (NH3) $335.00f x x x Hurdle Rate (real term) 9.7 %
Lime (CaO) $75.00g x x x Ramp-up until operational at full capacity
Enzyme (Offsite price) $6 000.00a x x % year 1 50 %
Antifoam (Tween 60) $1 800.00a x x % year 2 75 %
Chemical Conversion % year 3 100 %
Raney-Ni catalyst $18 500.00e x Plant Life (years) 25
Hydrogen gas (H2) $6 500.00a x Equity 100 %
IE Chromotography resin (SAC) $0.10a x % FCI spent in year -2 10 %
IE Chromotography resin (WBA) $0.10a x % FCI spent in -1 60 %
Biochemical Conversion % FCI spent in year 0 30 %
Ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) $220.00a x – Electricity selling price ($/kWh) 0.08
Monopotassium phosphate $950.00a x x Xylitol selling price ($/ton) $3000b
(KH2PO4) CA selling price ($/ton) $680c
Magnesium sulphate $95.00a x x GA selling price ($/ton) $3625d
(MgSO4.7H2O)
a
Manganese sulphate $450.00 x x a) (Görgens et al., 2016); b) (Medina et al., 2018); c)(Hou and Bao, 2018);
(MnSO4.4H2O) d) (Pal et al., 2016).
Ferrous sulphate (FeSO4.7H2O) $95.00a x x
Copper sulphate (CuSO4.5H2O) $2 250.00a x
Zinc sulphate (ZnSO4.7H2O) $730.00a x Of the two remaining streams, the residual solid fraction from the
Cobalt sulphate (CoSO4.7H2O) $7 750.00a x enzymatic hydrolysis was sent to area 500 as boiler fuel source and the
Boric acid (H3BO3) $815.00a x liquid hemicellulose hydrolysate fraction from the DA pretreatment was
Calcium chloride (CaCl2) $160.00a x sent to the WWT facility in area 600 for bio-gas production. The soluble
Sodium Cgloride (NaCl) $87.00a x
inhibitors and sugars were anaerobically and aerobically digested to
Calcium $1 150.00a x
Sodium Molybdate $8 000.00a x form clean water and bio-gas (i.e. methane), which was subsequently
(Na2MoO4.2H2O) scrubbed and sent through to area 500 for combustion (Humbird,
Thiamine (Vitamin B1) $30 000.00a x 2011).
Biotin (Vitamin B7) $400 000.00a x x
The glucose-rich enzymatic hydrolysis product stream was con-
Pyridoxine (Vitamine B6) $25 000.00a x
Ca-D-Pantothenate $20 000.00a x centrated and fed with nutrients through a feed sterilizer for 10 min at
Nicotinic acid (niacin) $6 000.00a x 121 °C. The sterilized feed, containing 336 g glucose/L and nutrients
Micro-organism Inoculum $0.02h x along with seed inoculum produced in area 700, was used in continuous
Oleic acid (C18H34O2) $2 000.00a x fermentation process with Candida oleophila ATCC 20177 at 30 °C to
Urea $242.00f x
produce citric acid and by-products, most notably oxalic acid
a – Industry Price 2016, b – Thekwini Municipal Commercial Tariff for > 45 kL, (Anastassiadis and Rehm, 2006; Datta and Bergemann, 1996; Heinzle
c – Estimated cost of SA bagasse and trash(Görgens et al., 2016), d – Basic et al., 2006).
Chemical, Omaha via HGI, e – International Price (“Export Data and Price of After biochemical conversion, the cell biomass was filtered out and
raney nickel catalyst under HS Code 3815 _ Zauba, ” n.d.), f – International the CA-rich liquid was purified via solvent extraction (SE) using amine
price (Jones, 2016), g – Average cost $3-10/kg (Eichman et al., 2016; James solvent and stripped using stripping water (Baniel et al., 2008; Grewal
et al., 2016), h – Weighted average for all inoculum chemicals at industry price. and Kalra, 1995). This form of separation is preferable as it avoids the
formation of gypsum which is typical of conventional lime precipitative
and Hamalainen, 1977; Mikkola et al., 1999; Yadav et al., 2012). Xylitol methods (Heinzle et al., 2006). CA was thereafter crystallised and dried
was thereafter purified to 98 wt.% using ion-exchange chromatography, to a purity of 98 wt. % before being packaged for distribution.
crystallisation and drying into a solid crystal form before being pack-
aged for distribution (Melaja and Hamalainen, 1977).
2.3.4. Scenario 3: GA and electricity co-production
2.3.3. Scenario 2: CA and electricity co-production The glutamic acid (GA) biorefinery has the same designated process
The citric acid (CA) biorefinery has seven process areas. These in- areas as the CA biorefinery, though with a different purification process
clude pretreatment (area 100), enzymatic hydrolysis (area 200), fer- configuration (area 400). The glutamic acid was removed from the
mentation (area 300), purification (area 400), the CHP plant (area fermentation broth using integrated micro- and nanofiltration steps (Pal
500), WWT (area 600) and the fermentation seed train (area 700). et al., 2016).
Dilute acid (DA) pretreatment was the same as Section 2.1.2 for xylitol Similar to CA production, the raw lignocellulosic feed was pre-
production in Scenario 1. However, for citric acid production, the cel- treated using DA pretreatment and the cellulignin was sent to enzy-
lulignin fraction was sent to an enzymatic hydrolysis process step to matic hydrolysis, with the remaining cellulignin and hemicellulose
liberate glucose from cellulose. hydrolysate sent to plant areas 500 and 600, respectively. The glucose-
The insoluble cellulignin fraction was sent to a two-stage hydrolysis rich product stream was sterilised for 10 min at 12 °C and cooled before
reactor at atmospheric conditions for 84 h (24 h continuous and 60 h being combined with nutrients and microorganism inoculum produced
batch) where bought enzymes were dosed at 20 mg protein/g cellulose in area 700 (Nakazawa et al., 1996).
at 50 °C to hydrolyse the cellulose polymer chains to soluble glucose The sterilized glucose-rich medium was fermented by the micro-
monomers (Humbird, 2011). The soluble glucose-rich hydrolysate was organism Brevibacterium divaricatum NRRL B-2311 with the addition of
separated via vacuum filtration from the remaining solid fraction and ammonia as a nitrogen source at 33 ◦C and atmospheric conditions for
used in the fermentation step in plant area 300. 28.5 h, where a concentrated GA-rich slurry (100 g/L) formed until 2%

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Table 3
Overall Mass and Energy Balance Summaries for Scenarios Investigated.
Parameter Baseline Scenario 1 (Xylitol) Scenario 2 (CA) Scenario 3 (GA)

Bypass to boiler (%) 100% 46% 45% 35%

Feedstock to biorefinery (t/h) 0 61.31 62.4 73.8
Feed to biorefinery (t DM/h) 0 35.1 35.8 42.3
Product (t/h) 0 5.8 14.9 12.6
Product yield on feedstock (%) 0 9.5 24.0 17.2
Excess elec. (kWh) 60 520.0 2304.8 7970.0 11415.3

Table 4 determined from reported costs (Humbird, 2011). Eq. (4) was used to
Capital investment for biorefinery scenarios by plant section ($ million) for the calculate the installed equipment cost from the bare modules cost re-
year of study 2016. ported in literature. Eq. (5) was used to obtain the equipment cost for
Scenarios Baseline 1 Xylitol 2 Citric acid 3 Glutamic the desired capacity (C2). The installed cost (C1) was multiplied by the
acid value of the new capacity (S2) over the reported capacity (S1), subject to
the sizing exponent (n). The installed equipment cost was then scaled to
Bypass to CHP plant (% total 100% 46% 45% 35%
the desired time value (i.e. present day) using the chemical engineering
raw feed)
Process Area (Installed cost) cost price index (CEPCI) values in Eq. (6). The sizing exponents, in-
100: Pretreatment – $9.28 $8.95 $13.01 stallation factors and CEPCI values used are provided in the Supple-
200: Detoxification/ – $4.96 $23.92 $28.90 mentary information.
enzymatic hydrolysis
300: Reaction/Fermentation – $20.79 $33.39 $35.14 Cbare = a + bS n (3)
400: Purification – $3.89 $1.23 $16.01
500: CHP $73.48 $69.43 $78.71 $81.89 Cinstall = C(e) × Finstall (4)
600: WWT – $11.35 $38.79 $39.27
n
700: Seed Train – – $3.65 $7.71 S2
Cinstall = C1 ×
PBL Total $0.0 $38.92 $71.14 $100.77 S1 (5)
800: Storage (5% of PBL) – $1.95 $3.56 $5.04
900: Utilities (6.5 % of PBL) – $2.53 $4.62 $6.55
CEPCInew
Total Equipment Cost $77.44 $124.18 $196.83 $233.51 Cnew = Cinstall ×
Warehouse (4% of PBL) – $1.56 $2.85 $4.03 CEPCIinstall (6)
Site Development (9 % of – $3.50 $6.40 $9.07
PBL) Variable consumable operating costs for the investigated scenarios
Additional Piping (4.5 % of – $1.75 $3.20 $4.53 (1–3) are provided in Table 1. Capital and operating costs were used as
PBL) input values into a cumulative discounted cash flow sheet model.
Total Direct Costs (TDC) $0.0 $130.99 $209.28 $251.15 Economic assumptions for major cash flow parameters for the present
Total Indirect Costs (0.6 x $46.47 $78.59 $125.57 $150.69
TDC)
work are shown in Table 2. The profitability is assessed over a 25 year
Fixed Capital Investment $123.9 $209.58 $334.84 $401.83 project lifespan for an assumed yearly operating time of 9 out of 12
(FCI) months (6480 h) corresponding to typical sugarcane growing-harvest
Working Capital (WC) = 5% $6.2 $10.48 $16.74 $20.09 cycle (Ali Mandegari et al., 2017b; Farzad et al., 2015).
of FCI
Total Capital Investment $130.11 $220.06 $351.59 $421.93
(TCI) 3. Results and discussion

3.1. Mass and energy balances

glucose remained (Nakazawa et al., 1996). The product slurry was then
passed through microfiltration to separate cell biomass, a part of which
was recycled back to the fermenters (Pal et al., 2016, 2015). Thereafter
permeate was fed through two nanofiltration modules to remove mi-
neral ions and recover any residual glucose and rejected GA. The re-
sulting GA-rich retentate exiting the second nanofiltration module
achieved a product concentration of 175 g GA/L and was sent to crys-
tallisation and vacuum drying to remove any moisture for a 98 wt.%
purity before being packaged for distribution (Pal et al., 2016, 2015).
2.4. Economic assessment
The mass and energy data from the biorefinery scenarios was used
to size equipment and determine the capital costs using design heur-
istics (Towler and Sinnott, 2008). The bare module equipment cost
(Cbare) was calculated from equipment-specific sizing parameters (a,b
and n) using Eq. (3)(Towler and Sinnott, 2008). The installed cost
(Cinstall) was then calculated from the bare module equipment cost, by
taking the installation, labour and material of construction into ac-
count, represented as the installation factor (Finstall) in Eq. (4).
Alternatively, previous costs reported in literature were used to
determine the bare modules or installed cost. The cost of the enzymatic
hydrolysis reactor, CHP boiler as well as the CEST turbines were
Mass and energy balances for each scenario are summarised in
Table 3. Biomass bypasses to the CHP plant boiler of 46%, 45% and
35% were obtained for the xylitol-electricity, citric acid-electricity and
glutamic acid-electricity in Scenarios 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The xy-
litol biorefinery in Scenario 1 had the lowest product rate, 5.8 t/h,
compared to Scenarios 2 and 3 with products rates of 14.9 t/h CA and
12.6 t/h GA, respectively.
The low xylitol product rate could be attributed to the composition
of lignocellulose. Xylitol is produced from xylose which forms part of
the hemicellulose fraction of lignocellulose and makes up 26.4–28.6%
of the lignocellulose (Petersen et al., 2014). In contrast, citric acid and
glutamic acid are produced from glucose which is derived from parts of
the xylan as well as the cellulose fraction, which makes up 39.8–41.1 wt
% of the biomass (Petersen et al., 2014). As a result, the overall yield of
bioproduct per ton sugarcane bagasse and trash biomass was lower for
xylitol production at 9.5%, compared to 24.0% and 17.2% for CA and
GA, respectively (Table 3).
Although a single pretreatment method was selected and used for
both the xylose (Scenario 1) and glucose based products (Scenario 2
and 3) to allow comparability, it should be noted that the bioproduct
processes could be improved by selecting a more suitable pretreatment
method per biorefinery scenario. A highly severe pretreatment method
(i.e. high temperature, residence time and acid concentration) causes

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H.M.R. Özüdoğru, et al.
Fig. 2. Capital installed cost distribution displayed by equipment type as a percentage of total installed cost.
increased enzymatic digestibility of the lignocelluloses, but is accom-
panied by high sugar degradation and production of inhibitors
(Mokomele et al., 2018). Conversely, a less severe pretreatment method
may result in low enzymatic digestibility with low sugar degradation
and little to no inhibitor formation. Therefore the xylose yield can be
maximised, and the pretreatment inhibitors produced minimised, for
Scenario 1 by using a less severe pretreatment method (Benjamin,
2014). Similarly, a more severe pretreatment method could be used in
Scenarios 2 and 3 to increase the enzymatic digestibility for more ef-
ficient enzymatic hydrolysis and thus higher glucose yields. These
higher sugar yields may increase the bioproduct formation and thus
bioproduct yield per ton of feedstock fed to the biorefinery, which will
have a positive economic impact.
The total production rate of Scenario 1 can be further improved by
integrating xylitol production with a bio-product produced from the
cellulignin fraction, such as biofuel production (Ali Mandegari et al.,
2017a Ali Mandegari et al., 2017a) or combined with the citric acid or
glutamic acid process in a multiproduct plant biorefinery. However,
combining the processes may have a detrimental impact on the bypass
rate, since less pretreatment waste (cellulignin) will be available as
boiler feed and the additional processing equipment will further in-
crease the energy requirements.
Scenario 1 had low sellable electricity (2.3 MW h) when compared
to the other two scenarios with 8–11.4 MW h (Table 3). This difference
was mainly due to the type of equipment used in the purification area of
the xylitol biorefinery. The evaporation step accounted for 55.4%
(55.4 t/h) of the total steam requirement and the crystallisation and
drying steps resulted in high electricity requirements, which accounted
for 79% (6480 kW) of the total electricity required, compared to 2 kW
and 171 kW required for the total purification areas (400) of Scenario 2
and 3, respectively.
In contrast, the process technology used for GA purification in
Scenario 3 had a positive impact on both the sellable electricity avail-
able (increased to 11.4 MW h shown in Table 3) and bypass rate (lower
than other scenarios) due to the low energy requirements. Membrane
integrated reactor systems were used instead of traditional product
recovery and purification methods, such as ion exchange, crystallisation
and drying. Utilising membrane integrated reactor systems reduced the
number of purification steps and process units required, resulting in low
265
Industrial Crops & Products 133 (2019) 259–268
electricity consumption.
3.2. Economic assessment
The capital costs are broken down by plant section and provided in
Table 4. The capital costs distribution, based on the type of equipment,
is shown in Fig. 2. The process battery limit (PBL) includes the new
infrastructure biorefinery costs, for plant areas 100-400. Additional
costs such as warehouse (4% of PBL), site development (9% of PBL) and
additional piping (4.5% of PBL) were added as a fraction of the PBL to
account for new infrastructure associated with the new biorefinery
plant areas (Görgens et al., 2016).
3.2.1. Capital and operating expenses
The most significant differences between the scenarios’ installed
equipment costs are seen for plant areas 400 (purification), 500 (CHP
plant) and 600 (waste water treatment). In Scenario 3 the recycle of
biomass cells and a sugar and nutrient rich stream to the fermentation
area results in a diluted glutamic acid fermenter feed stream and a
lower product titre. Consequently, the purification area 400 is more
expensive, at $16.01 million, compared to $3.89 million for xylitol
purification in Scenario 1 and $1.23 million for citric acid purification
in Scenario 2.
The cost difference for plant area 500 between scenarios are due to
their different bypass rate. An increasing bypass rate means that the
amount of lignocellulose diverted to the CHP increased. This affected
the cost distribution because the installed capital costs for the CHP
plant (boiler, turbines and air blowers) increased while the biorefinery
costs (reactor equipment, heating and cooling and filtration costs) de-
creased. This area contributed 57.6%, 46.2% and 36.9% for Scenarios
1, 2 and 3, respectively.
Finally, the cost difference in the WWT plant area 600 was due to
the type of waste streams treated in the different scenarios. The addi-
tional hemicellulose waste streams increased the volumetric feed rate to
the WWT for Scenarios 2 and 3, which increased the equipment size and
thus equipment costs to almost four times that of the WWT in Scenario
1.
The variable operating expenses, distributed by plant section and
individual chemical cost distributions for the investigated scenarios, are
H.M.R. Özüdoğru, et al. Industrial Crops & Products 133 (2019) 259–268

Fig. 3. Operating cost distribution for biorefineries by plant section and cost type. Scenario (1): xylitol + electricity, (2): citric acid + electricity, (3): glutamic
acid + electricity.

shown in Fig. 3. For Scenario 1 the catalytic reactor, detoxification and
pretreatment plant areas contributed most to the total variable oper-
ating costs of $75.8 million, with $26.9, $23.6 and $16.4 million, re-
spectively. More specifically, the costs in the reaction section (area 300)
were high due to the relatively high cost of hydrogen gas and the
Raney-Ni catalyst, contributing to 36% of the variable operating costs.
If hydrogen was produced onsite via hydrolysis or charcoal gasification,
rather than being bought off-site for catalytic hydrogenation of xylose,
the variable operating costs could be reduced, albeit at a higher capital
cost.

266
H.M.R. Özüdoğru, et al.
Table 5
Economic Feasibility Summary (prices in $ million).
Biorefinery TCI
Scenario 1: Xylitol (46% bypass) $220.1
Scenario 2: Citric Acid (45% bypass) $351.6
Scenario 3: Glutamic Acid (35% bypass) $421.9
Baseline scenario: CHP $130.1
For Scenario 2 the major operating cost contributors were the
amine-alcohol solvent used during solvent extraction (SE, 28%), the off-
site enzyme dosing costs (18%) and the raw feedstock costs (14%),
contributing 60% of total $55.5 million variable costs. For Scenario 3
the highest costs were for the enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation and
pretreatment sections (area 200, 300 and 100, respectively). The
highest operating costs were the cost of enzymes, ammonia and raw
feedstock costs which collectively contributed 75% towards total vari-
able operating costs of $100.9 million. Purification costs were sub-
stantially lower for GA production than those for xylitol and CA pro-
duction, due to the micro- and nano-filtration modules used during
purification due to reduced chemical costs.
3.2.2. Scenario profitability
Scenarios 1 and 3 were found to be profitable with an IRR of more
than the hurdle rate, 9.7%, resulting in a positive NPV. The highest IRR
of 31.2% was achieved for glutamic acid production in Scenario 3, and
the least profitable scenario was CA production with a NPV of -273.2
million $. The baseline CHP plant scenario was only marginally prof-
itable with an IRR of 10.3%
Although Scenario 3 has the highest IRR (31.2%) and largest NPV
($866.5 million) of all the scenarios, it also has the largest TCI and TOC,
which may be detrimental if low capital expenditure is a desired in-
vestment criteria. Moreover, the technical maturity is low due to the
novel purification process of micro- and nanofiltration used in the
purification step thus increasing the risk of investment. The xylitol
biorefinery in Scenario 1 may be deemed more desirable, with an IRR of
12.3%, but with a TCI at less than half that of Scenario 3 ($421.9
million) at $220.1 million.
Although the baseline is technically mature, due to well established
processes, with low capital expenditure (Table 5), the IRR of 10.3 is too
close to the hurdle rate of 9.7% and is therefore not seen as a viable
investment option.
Scenario 2 was not profitable at a selling price of 680 $/t, with a
NPV of −273.2 million $ (Table 5). This could be improved by im-
plementing a simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF)
strategy, where improved titre (136.3 g/L) and yield (74.9%) were
obtained by Hou and Bao (2018), and the proposed cellulosic bior-
efinery was profitable for a citric acid selling price above 603 $/t (Hou
and Bao, 2018). The SSF strategy was also found to result in the most
favourable economic outcome for the production of biobutanol from
sugarcane lignocellulose, with an IRR of 15% (Haigh et al., 2018).
On the other hand, Scenario 1 could be improved by integrating
xylitol production with ethanol production for improved profitability.
The co-production of xylitol and ethanol from sugarcane bagasse
caused the profitability to increase 2.3-fold compared to cellulosic
ethanol production (Unrean and Ketsub, 2018), which has an IRR of
10.2% (Ali Mandegari et al., 2017a,2017b). The co-production of
ethanol with xylitol and lignin also proved to be the most profitable
process configuration when different pretreatment options were in-
vestigated (Medina et al., 2018).
It may seem logical to amend an existing process to access waste
such as lignocellulose however it can be seen that there are costs as-
sociated with this approach due to the need for additional equipment.
Further it can be see that technical maturity is not necessarily an in-
dicator of success given that the CHP only scenario is marginally
Industrial Crops & Products 133 (2019) 259–268
TOC Total Sales IRR (%) NPV
$79.3 116.2 12.3 $ 39.9
$60.0 71.3 n/a −273.2
$109.1 $302.7 31.2 $866.5
$13.2 $31.4 10.3 $6.1
profitable. While elements of the CA process are technically mature
(fermentation and downstream processing) which contributes to a high
yield (24%, Table 3) the investigated process is not economically vi-
able. Additional costs are required for process such as pretreament,
detoxification and a CHP which can outweigh the advantages.
4. Conclusions
Valorisation of lignocellulosic sugarcane bagasse and trash in bior-
efineries annexed to existing sugar mills is a promising means of im-
proving the profitability of the South African sugar milling industry.
While it may seem logical to amend existing processes to make more
effective use of the waste it can be seen that the effectiveness of this
approach varies depending on the choice of product and process
choices.
Producing xylitol (Scenario 1) or glutamic acid (Scenario 3) in
conjunction with electricity proved to be more profitable (IRR’s of
12.3% and 31.2% respectively) than combustion of lignocellulose in a
standalone CHP plant (IRR of 10.3%). Citric acid and electricity co-
production (Scenario 2) was not profitable. Xylitol and Glutamic acid
have much higher selling prices than citric acid, at 3000 $/t and 3265
$/t, respectively, compared to 680 $/t for citric acid. Therefore the
production of citric acid (a low value chemical) could be integrated
with xylitol production (a higher value chemical), since these two
bioproducts utilise different sugar fractions obtained from pretreated
sugarcane lignocelluloses.
Xylitol production could also be integrated with any other biopro-
duct, such as ethanol biobutanol or lignin, to increase the scenario’s
profitability even further. To this end, the valorisation of sugarcane
bagasse and trash for the production of glutamic acid with electricity
may result in a profitable biorefinery scenario, with an IRR of 31.2%, to
ensure the economic competitiveness of the SA sugar industry.
Acknowledgements
This work is based on research financially supported by the National
Research Foundation (NRF) and the Sector Innovation Fund of the
Department of Science and Technology (DST). The authors acknowl-
edge that opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations ex-
pressed are those of the author and that the NRF and DST accept no
liability whatsoever in this regard. The authors gratefully acknowledge
Aspen Technology Inc. for provision of the Aspen Plus®, a registered
trademark of Aspen Technology Inc., for the academic licences used.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the
online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2019.03.015.
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