Techno-Economic Analysis Of Glucose Catalytic Oxidation To Value-Added Chemicals

Global concerns about depleting fossil reserves have driven countries towards bio-economies utilizing mostly first-generation feedstock.Due to rising oil prices and environmental aspects,research on alternatives for petroleum-based chemicals and fuels is growing in recent years.Biomass is one potential raw material for producing non-petroleum-derived chemicals and fuels.Different catalysts and reaction steps are required to generate the same products compared to the petroleum-based processes.One possible starting material for biobased chemicals is glucose,derived from monosaccharides.Glucose could be converted into different chemicals and fuels,such as glucaric acid,tartronic acid,gluconic acid,formic acid,and oxalic acid generated by catalytic oxidation of glucose with oxygen as an oxidant.Simulations on producing and purifying carboxylic acids from glucose were performed.Rstoic reactor was used to generate carboxylic acids from glucose in an aqueous solvent using air as an oxidant.For purification,two different processes were designed.In the first process,glucaric and gluconic acids are separated at evaporation at 130℃ and 10 mbar,and this stream has to go to another advanced separation process to purify glucaric acid.The second process produces tartronic acid at a purity of 85 wt%with a flow rate of 1465kg/day using a flash separator.The economic viability of energy self-sufficient biorefineries processing sugarcane lignocelluloses into glucaric acid was investigated.In this work,AspenPlus simulation represented glucose conversion processes to carboxylic acids via PtPd/TiO₂ catalyst followed by evaporation process as the first stage for glucaric acid purification and tartronic acid separation.The most economically viable carboxylic acids production with a capital investment cost of US$4.16 Million and US$5.76Million operation cost.