Energy-Economic Analysis of Thermal-Expansionary Pretreatment for Its Implementation at a Biogas Plant

Thermal-expansionary pretreatment is a novel environmentally friendly technology that has high potential to be installed in various industrial biofuel technologies where lignocellulosic biomass is processed. It is based on the boiling of biomass in water maintained by pressure in the liquid state, under a process temperature and a residence time with subsequent rapid batch decompression. The performance of the intensified pretreatment technology was shown in an intensified full-scale biogas plant. Wheat straw was used as the model processing substrate. To show the improvement, the results were compared with the regular non-intensified biogas plant. It was found that the intensified plant had a much higher power. The economic analysis and payback period were performed for both types of plant.