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Biomass liquefaction can enhance corn-stover slurry transportation by reducing yield stress and overall viscosity, easing biomass handling, especially for slurries at high solids loading (≥30 % (w/v). Implementing a liquefaction process at the front-end of the biorefinery could reduce downtime caused by equipment fouling. Furthermore, liquefaction reduces process complexity by transforming high fiber mass into a pumpable slurry. Three scenarios for liquefaction of corn stover pellets: enzyme process, enzyme mimetic process, and a combined process of enzyme and enzyme mimetic were assessed. The ideal process will have the best performance-to-cost ratio, with minimal impact on the environment. Techno-economic and life-cyclemore » analyses were used to understand the economic and environmental effects of the three liquefaction scenarios and to determine if one or more can achieve cost parity. Here, results show that the enzyme process had the best performance in terms of cost and emissions (gCO₂-equivalent/kg slurry)compared to the other scenarios.« less

Abstract The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) published a model in 2017 that enables the minimum selling price of lignocellulosic sugar to be calculated. The model can be modified to suit any biomass feedstock and operational design. In the present case, the model is used to understand the economics of a process configuration that incorporates liquefaction as a preprocessing step in corn‐stover‐fed biorefinery. This study demonstrates a quantitative approach utilizing an existing biorefinery setup to simulate the biomass liquefaction technique while estimating the price of the resulting sugar product. The objective is to understand whether the addition of liquefaction methodologymore » – and the substitution of acid pretreatment – can reduce the cost of lignocellulosic sugars. The reason for setting up a liquefaction unit at the start is to reduce the yield stress of biomass slurry so that the flow remains unrestricted downstream. The liquefaction process is also unique because it uses no chemicals and saves the cost of pretreatment. The pretreatment step is bypassed because the output of liquefaction can be fed into enzyme hydrolysis just after simple cooking. The liquefaction process can be performed in three modes: enzyme, enzyme mimetic, and a combination of enzyme and enzyme mimetic. The results from the BC1707 model indicate the minimum cost for the enzyme liquefaction route. © 2022 The Authors. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining published by Society of Industrial Chemistry and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.« less