Abstract
In the present work the energy and exergy efficiency of an organosolv biorefinery process has been evaluated. Based on experimental data obtained from ethanol – organosolv fractionation, a lignocellulosic biorefinery has been designed and simulated with Aspen Plus in order to obtain mass and energy flows, thermodynamic properties of the streams and the energy requirements of the process. These results have been used to develop the Heat Exchangers Network (HEN) optimization, through Pinch analysis with the HX-Net software, resulting in two improved HEN configurations that provided the minimum operating cost and the minimum capital cost, respectively. For the base-case and for the energy-optimized HEN configurations, an exergy analysis was carried out, taking into account the different stages of the proposed organosolv biorefinery process. Thus, in addition to the initial design energy optimization study, an assessment of the improvements on the use of energy provided by each new design was carried out.
