Abstract
The Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) recently completed a detailed engineering and economic analysis of the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) based wood-to-ethanol process. The reference-case design was based on a plant capacity of 1920 dry t/d and a wood cost of $42/dry t. For this case, the preliminary estimate of the production cost of the ethanol product is about $1.22/gal. The combined effects of optimizing SSF enzyme loading, increasing plant capacity to 10,000 dry t/d, and reducing wood cost to $34/dry t are to reduce the preliminary estimate of the production cost to about $0.95/gal. Other technological improvements may further reduce the production cost. Certain technical assumptions, inherent in the analysis, are being investigated further.
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Hinman, N.D., Schell, D.J., Riley, J. et al. Preliminary estimate of the cost of ethanol production for ssf technology. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 34, 639–649 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02920584
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02920584