Exergy, Exergy–Economics and Pinch Analyses of Butadiene Production Process from Sweet Sorghum

Abstract

Abstract The utilization of biomass to generate energy, chemicals and materials is one of the essential elements of sustainable development. It would be beneficial if substitutes for these petrochemicals are developed with an eye to the future. Currently, research is being done to discover ways to produce petrochemicals in an eco-friendlier way, e.g., converting biomass towards bulk chemicals like butadiene. Butadiene is an essential element in the petrochemical sector, and demand for it has increased along with the expansion of the petrochemical market. Furthermore, rubber products have a wide range of applications in the automotive, oil and gas, medical and plastic industries. When oil prices are stable, the rubber market becomes steady and prices become reasonable. In contributing to this development, an energy efficient plant has been designed in this work. The plant uses sweet sorghum as the main raw material stream and produced 30,000 kg/hr of 1, 3-butadiene. The process consisted of four distinct stages: juice extraction, fermentation, ethanol dehydration and butadiene separation. The thermodynamic method used in the simulation was Non-Random Two-Liquid (NRTL) model. The results from the work provided a design and an economic analysis for a complete butadiene production plant. Mass and energy balances were also provided, and the utility requirements were determined by exergy, exergy-economics and pinch studies using Aspen Plus software.