Techno-economic optimization of a process superstructure for lignin valorization

Ada Josefina Robinson; Aristide Giuliano; Omar Y Abdelaziz; Christian P Hulteberg; Apostolis Koutinas; Konstantinos S Triantafyllidis; Diego Barletta; Isabella De Bari

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2022.128004

Techno-economic optimization of a process superstructure for lignin valorization

Bioresour Technol. 2022 Nov:364:128004. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2022.128004. Epub 2022 Sep 23.

Authors

Ada Josefina Robinson¹, Aristide Giuliano², Omar Y Abdelaziz³, Christian P Hulteberg³, Apostolis Koutinas⁴, Konstantinos S Triantafyllidis⁵, Diego Barletta¹, Isabella De Bari⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, I-84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy.
² ENEA, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, S.S. 106 Ionica, Laboratory of Technologies and Processes for Biorefineries and Green Chemistry, km 419+500, Rotondella (MT), Italy. Electronic address: aristide.giuliano@enea.it.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Lund University, Naturvetarvägen 14, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden.
⁴ Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 118 55 Athens, Greece.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.
⁶ ENEA, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, S.S. 106 Ionica, Laboratory of Technologies and Processes for Biorefineries and Green Chemistry, km 419+500, Rotondella (MT), Italy.

PMID: 36162782
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2022.128004

Abstract

Lignin, the most abundant aromatic biopolymer on Earth, is often considered a biorefinery by-product, despite its potential to be valorized into high-added-value chemicals and fuels. In this work, an integrated superstructure-based optimization model was set up and optimized using mixed-integer non-linear programming for the conversion of technical lignin to three main biobased products: aromatic monomers, phenol-formaldehyde resins, and aromatic aldehydes/acids. Several alternative conversion pathways were simultaneously compared to assess the profitability of lignins-based processes by predicting the performance of technologies with different TRL. Upon employing key technologies such as hydrothermal liquefaction, dissolution in solvent, or high-temperature electrolysis, the technical lignins could have a market value of 200 €/t when the market price for aromatic monomers, resins, and vanillin is at least 2.0, 0.8, and 15.0 €/kg, respectively. When lower product selling prices were considered, the aromatic monomers and the resins were not profitable as target products.

Keywords: Aromatic monomers; Biorefinery; Lignin valorization; Modelling; Phenolic resins; Process optimization; Vanillin.