Process Engineering and Life Cycle

Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) for

Sustainable Bio-based Circular Economy

Dr Jhuma Sadhukhan (FIChemE, CEng, CSci)

j.sadhukhan@surrey.ac.uk

www.theibest.org

Fossil economy took centuries to

mature and bioeconomy is no better

2

• Extensive extraction and

process integration

• All types of separation

• A process does not end at a

reactor level, but has to

include separation and

purification (not just the key

business driver)

• Extensive heat or energy and

material recovery using

feasible source and sink

profile matching (eg pinch

analysis)

• How to implement at a large

scale

• Highest possible energy

efficiency

• Every drop is utilised including

of heavy and sour crude oils,

tar sands.

Integrated Thermochemical Systems:

Biomass Gasification Fuel Cell (BGFC) System

3

Sadhukhan, J., Zhao, Y., Shah, N. and Brandon, N.P., 2010. Performance analysis of integrated

biomass gasification fuel cell (BGFC) and biomass gasification combined cycle (BGCC)

systems. Chemical Engineering Science, 65(6), pp.1942-1954.

4

5

Non-competitive non-cutting edge

proposition

Energy and biofuel as the main product from

lignocellulose is an economic failure

(dependent on feed-in-tariff or

Renewable Transport Fuel

Obligation (RTFO)

www.theibest.org

©Jhuma Sadhukhan, University of Surrey

(jhumasadhukhan@gmail.com)

Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

A food or pharmaceutical ingredient or fine

and specialty chemical (only constitutes 5

weight% of lignocellulose) product if

targeted gives a breakthrough overall

sustainable system. The rest of the

lignocellulose can still be used for the

equal or greater amounts of bioenergy and

biofuel productions fulfilling societal

demands.

www.theibest.org

©Jhuma Sadhukhan, University of Surrey

(jhumasadhukhan@gmail.com)

Chemical & Material

Energy, Fertiliser

Biofuel

Food Ingredient,

Pharmaceutical

Biorefinery End Product Value & Volume

High Value Low Volume Product: Niche market

High Volume Low Value Product: Low hanging fruit www.theibest.org

Definition (2014)

9

"In the most advanced sense, a biorefinery is a facility with

integrated, efficient and flexible conversion of biomass

feedstocks, through a combination of physical, chemical,

biochemical and thermochemical processes, into multiple

products. The concept was developed by analogy to the

complex crude oil refineries adopting the process

engineering principles applied in their designs, such as

feedstock fractionation, multiple value-added productions,

and process flexibility and integration." – Biorefineries and

Chemical Processes: Design, Integration and Sustainability

Analysis, Wiley’s “seminal”, “comprehensive”, “game-

changing” textbook, 2014.

www.theibest.org

10

11

Selected as the

best paper

Process of making Levulinic acid and HMF

Feed mixer

Hydrolysis reactor

Water separator

Filter

Levulinic acid

extraction

Solvent separation

colum

Sulfuric acid

recovery

Levulinicacid

distillationcolumn

Mixer

Finishing step

Biomass

Acid recycle

Hot wastewater Wastewater to ETP

Char

Solvent make-up

Solvent recycle

Solvent

LA stream

Hot LA phase

Levulinic acid

Residue

Acid make-up

Dilute acid

Miller

Preheated feed

Reactor product

Cold LA phase

Effluent treatment

Anaerobic digestion

Biomass boiler, steam

gen. and steam turbine

Biogas

Fertiliser

Steam and electricity for internal use

Process of making Levulinic acid and HMF

Feed mixer

Hydrolysis reactor

Water separator

Filter

Levulinic acid

extraction

Solvent separation

colum

Sulfuric acid

recovery

Levulinicacid

distillationcolumn

Mixer

Finishing step

Biomass

Acid recycle

Hot wastewater Wastewater to ETP

Char

Solvent make-up

Solvent recycle

Solvent

LA stream

Hot LA phase

Levulinic acid

Residue

Acid make-up

Dilute acid

Miller

Preheated feed

Reactor product

Cold LA phase

Effluent treatment

Anaerobic digestion

Biomass boiler, steam

gen. and steam turbine

Biogas

Fertiliser

Steam and electricity for internal useReaction

section By-product

separation

Levulinic acid purification

and solvent recovery and

recycling

Acid recovery and

recycling

Effluent treatment and

energy system

Results of LCC: COP and VOP and thus economic margin

(𝐸𝑀 = (𝑉𝑂𝑃 − 𝐶𝑂𝑃) × 𝐹𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒) of various outlet streams from the MBCT system

14

-30.0

470.0

970.0

1470.0

1970.0

2470.0

2970.0

3470.0

3970.0

4470.0

0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 100.0

Euro

/t

Mass flowrate (t/h)

COP VOP

Electricity from non-recyclable other waste EM: 738.6 Euro/h

Recyclables, metals and fibre EM: 985 Euro/h

Electricity from RDF EM: 383.6 Euro/h

Recycled water, fertiliser and electricity from biogas EM: -3968.2 Euro/h

Electricity from charEM: -2458.3 Euro/h

Chemical product EM: 32195.8 Euro/h

Results of LCA

15

-125 -75 -25 25 75 125 175 225

Fossil energy saving potential

Acidification potential

Eutrophication potential

Freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity potential

Global warming potential

Human toxicity potential

Photochemical ozone creation potential

Benefit due to Levulinic Acid Benefit due to Fertiliser

Benefit due to offset of grid electricity Cost due to fuel combustion in CHP system

We create software for biorefinery process

analysis and sustainability • Input: waste composition

• Comprehensive flowsheet

• Output:

• Process design and dynamics

• Mass and energy balances, flows,

and inventories for those flows

• Energy recovery analysis

• Combined heat and power (CHP)

system and ETP design

• Techno-economic performance

analysis

• Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

(LCSA)

©Jhuma Sadhukhan

jhumasadhukhan@gmail.com

LCSA methodologies

• CML

• Recipe

• Impact

• TRACI

• ILCD

• BEES

• EPD

• About 150 criteria are evaluated capturing

dynamicity, feedstock fluctuations, process

dynamics, product market

• Attributional and consequential analyses 17

18

Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA)

Social hotspot index can be

calculated using a weighted sum

methodology

𝑆𝐻𝐼𝑐𝑎𝑡 = 𝑅𝑎𝑣𝑔

𝑛

𝑇=1

∗ 𝑊𝑇 / 𝑅𝑚𝑎𝑥 ∗ 𝑊𝑇

𝑛

𝑇=1

SHIcat = Social Hotspot Index for a category (e.g. labour, rights, governance) T = Theme (e.g., child labour, freedom of association rights) n = Number of themes within a category Ravg = average risk for a theme Rmax = Maximum risk for a theme WT = Weight assigned to theme

Industry and EPSRC funded research

• Nestle

Miah, J.H., Griffiths, A., McNeill, R., Halvorson, S., Schenker, U., Espinoza-Orias, N., Morse, S., Yang, A. and Sadhukhan, J., 2017. A framework for increasing the availability of life cycle inventory data based on the role of multinational companies. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, pp.1-17.

• 3M

Pask, F., Lake, P., Yang, A., Tokos, H. and Sadhukhan, J., 2017. Sustainability indicators for industrial ovens and assessment using Fuzzy set theory and Monte Carlo simulation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, pp.1217-1225.

• Recycling Technologies

A life cycle assessment data analysis toolkit for the design of novel processes - A case study for a thermal cracking process for mixed plastic waste – J Cleaner Production, 2017

• TWI Ltd.

Niekamp, S., Bharadwaj, U.R., Sadhukhan, J. and Chryssanthopoulos, M.K., 2015. A multi-criteria decision support framework for sustainable asset management and challenges in its application. Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering, 32(1), pp.23-36.

19

Research landscape in Bioeconomy for Sustainability at CES

1. Sustainability theme leader of EPSRC LifesCO2R: Liquid Fuel and

bioEnergy Supply from CO2 Reduction

2. NERC “Life Cycle Sustainability and Policy Analyses of Plausible Systems

for Resource Recovery from Waste (RRfW)”

3. Sustainability theme leader of NERC “Resource Recovery from

Wastewaters by Bioelectrochemical Systems”

4. British Councils and RSC Researcher Links Workshops in India on Energy

for Economic Development and Welfare

5. British Councils Researcher Links Workshops in Malaysia on Bioenergy,

Biorefinery and Bioeconomy

6. Newton Research Collaboration Programme Grant of the RAEng

“Economic Value Generation and Social Welfare in Mexico by Waste

Biorefining”

7. British Councils and CONACYT Researcher Links Workshops in Mexico on

Biorefinery Innovations

www.theibest.org

University convener and educator of Life Cycle

Assessment and Biomass Processing Technology

Members

from 90+ organisations

10000+ visitors worldwide

3

International

training

workshops

3

British Councils

Researcher Links

workshops

1 2 Special

Issues on

Biorefinery

Value Chain

IBEST’s

Annual

Magazine ISSN 2398-0575

www.theibest.org

www.theibest.org

2 Years of the Institution of Biorefinery Engineers, Scientists

and Technologists (IBEST)

23

24

https://www.surrey.ac.uk/features/surrey-leads-uk-indian-workshop-sustainable-development

http://epaper.livehindustan.com/epaper/Uttrakhand/Dehradun/2017-10-24/135/Page-7.html

http://epaper.jagran.com/ePaperArticle/24-oct-2017-edition-Dehradun-city-page_6-3086-7292-104.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/workshop-begins-at-iip.html

http://www.rashtriyasahara.com/epapermain.aspx?queryed=14