Integrated polylactic acid and biodiesel production from food waste: Process synthesis and economics

Naveenkumar Rajendran; Jeehoon Han

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.126119

Integrated polylactic acid and biodiesel production from food waste: Process synthesis and economics

Bioresour Technol. 2022 Jan:343:126119. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.126119. Epub 2021 Oct 12.

Authors

Naveenkumar Rajendran¹, Jeehoon Han²

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering, Jeonbuk National University, 54896, Republic of Korea.
² School of Chemical Engineering, Jeonbuk National University, 54896, Republic of Korea; School of Semiconductor and Chemical Engineering, Jeonbuk National University, 54896, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: jhhan@jbnu.ac.kr.

PMID: 34653627
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.126119

Abstract

In this study, techno-economic analysis of the sustainable production of polylactic acid (PLA) and biodiesel from Food Waste (FW), with a plant capacity of 50 tons/day, was investigated. In addition, FW of four countries (China, India, Brazil, and the USA) with different compositions of water, protein, lipid and carbohydrate were proposed. Each country has different PLA production rates based on carbohydrate and biodiesel production based on fat. In this study, the FW composition of the USA shows better economic feasibility than other countries. The actual minimum selling price is 6.53 (China), 5.35 (India), 4.75 (Brazil), and 4.29 (US) $/kg. The uncertainty of the MSP was analyzed based on various input limits. The sensitivity analysis was conducted based on biodiesel-selling price, PLA-selling price, income tax, and project lifetime on techno-economic analysis parameters, such as ROI, payback period, IRR and NPV were investigated.

Keywords: Biodiesel; Energy integration; Food waste; PLA; Techno-economic analysis.

MeSH terms

Biofuels*
Food
Polyesters
Refuse Disposal*

Substances

Biofuels
Polyesters
poly(lactide)