1 research outputs found
Techno-economic Analysis of Sustainable Biofuels for Marine Transportation
Renewable, low-carbon biofuels offer the potential opportunity
to decarbonize marine transportation. This paper presents a comparative
techno-economic analysis and process sustainability assessment of
four conversion pathways: (1) hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of wet
wastes such as sewage sludge and manure; (2) fast pyrolysis of woody
biomass; (3) landfill gas Fischer–Tropsch synthesis; and (4)
lignin–ethanol oil from the lignocellulosic ethanol biorefinery
utilizing reductive catalytic fractionation. These alternative marine
biofuels have a modeled minimum fuel selling price between 3.98 per heavy fuel oil gallon equivalent in 2016 U.S. dollars based
on a mature plant assessment. The selected pathways also exhibit good
process sustainability performance in terms of water intensity compared
to the petroleum refineries. Further, the O and S contents of the
biofuels vary widely. While the non-HTL biofuels exhibit negligible
S content, the raw biocrudes via HTL pathways from
sludge and manure show relatively high S contents (>0.5 wt %).
Partial
or full hydrotreatment can effectively lower the biocrude S content.
Additionally, co-feeding with other low-sulfur wet wastes such as
food waste can provide another option to produce raw biocrude with
lower S content to meet the target with further hydrotreatment. This
study indicates that biofuels could be a cost-effective fuel option
for the marine sector. Marine biofuels derived from various feedstocks
and conversion technologies could mitigate marine biofuel adoption
risk in terms of feedstock availability and biorefinery economics