Sustainability of carbon delivery to an algal biorefinery: A techno-economic and life-cycle assessment

Somers, Michael D.; Quinn, Jason C.

doi:10.1016/j.jcou.2019.01.007

Title: Sustainability of carbon delivery to an algal biorefinery: A techno-economic and life-cycle assessment

Journal Article · 21 February 2019 · Journal of CO2 Utilization

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcou.2019.01.007 · OSTI ID:1613442

Somers, Michael D. ^[1]; Quinn, Jason C.

Colorado State University

Supplementation of carbon is critical for high productivity cultivation of most microalgae. Moreover, using microalgae for atmospheric CO₂ mitigation to combat climate change is promising as waste sources and atmospheric CO₂ can be utilized to produce useful products. The challenge is developing technologies, processes, and strategies that utilize carbon efficiently such that the overall system is sustainable. Through engineering system modeling combined with techno-economic and life-cycle assessments, this study examined the implications of various delivery methods of carbon to a production-scale algal biorefinery. Five primary carbon sources were considered: atmospheric CO₂; CO₂ from direct chemical or power plant waste emissions; CO₂ that has been concentrated from waste sources and compressed; inorganic carbon in the form of hydrogen carbonate; and organic carbon in the form of cellulosic sugars derived from corn stover. Each source was evaluated assuming co-location as well as pipeline transportation up to 100 km. Sustainability results indicate that economics are more prohibitive than energy and emissions. Furthermore, of the scenarios evaluated, only two met both the economic and environmental criteria of contributing less than 0.50 US-$ GGE^-1 and 20 _g CO_2-eqMJ^-1 to the overall system, respectively: uncompressed, pure sources of gaseous CO₂ with pipeline transportation of 40 km or less; and compressed, supercritical CO₂ from pure sources for pipeline transportation up to 100 km. A first order scalability assessment of algal biofuels based on these results shows carbon to be a limiting nutrient in an algal biorefinery with a total US production capability of 360 million gallons of fuel per year.

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Research Organization:: Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Grant/Contract Number:: EE0007562

OSTI ID:: 1613442

Journal Information:: Journal of CO2 Utilization, Journal Name: Journal of CO2 Utilization Journal Issue: C Vol. 30; ISSN 2212-9820

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Title: Sustainability of carbon delivery to an algal biorefinery: A techno-economic and life-cycle assessment

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