Optimizing Biorefineries to Reduce Biofuels Cost

Biorefineries to produce biofuels involve a large array of potential bioproducts, including protein and glycerol for animal feed, omega-3 fatty acids for nutraceuticals and food supplements, and pulp/cellulose for paper products. This paper focuses on the structure of biorefinery optimization problems and approaches to solve them – including inequality constraints to reduce toxic chemicals, the role of process simulators, methods of estimating thermophysical properties and multiphase equilibrium, reaction kinetics modeling, strategies of process intensification, heat and mass integration, life-cycle analysis/sustainability, and multiple conflicting objectives. Typical math programming formulations are illustrated for biofuels from algae, ethanol from cellulosic biomass, and pulp and paper from woody biomass. These include an array of linear programs, nonlinear programs, and mixed-integer nonlinear programs. A focus involves decomposition strategies at various stages of biorefinery design and operation.

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