A techno-economic analysis of bio-gasoline production from corn stover via catalytic conversion

Bio-gasoline derived from biomass is a clean and renewable energy, which can replace conventional petroleum-derived transport fuels. Here, we developed and evaluated a new catalytic process for the production of a renewable bio-gasoline from corn stover. In this process, corn stover is converted into bio-gasoline via a four-step catalytic conversion: hydrolysis of corn stover to levulinic acid (LA), dehydration of LA to angelica lactone (AL), di-/trimerization of AL to AL dimer and trimer and hydrogenation of AL dimer and trimer to bio-gasoline. Techno-economic analysis of a plant with a production capacity of 10,000 t/yr bio-gasoline was performed based on the integrated bio-gasoline production process using corn stover as feedstock. The results indicated that the price of target product as well as raw materials had great influence on this process. The return on investment of this process was estimated to be 15.8%, which maintained a break-even point when this process was operating at only 39% of the designed capacity. The results demonstrated that this technology provided an economically attractive and sustainable pathway in the conversion of waste biomass to bio-gasoline. [GRAPHICS] .