(580b) A Biorefinery Boutique Made in Switzerland

Many challenges pave the road from an oil-based to a renewable economy. In the chemical industry, a substantial amount of work needs to be undertaken for renewable-based processes to compete with their petrochemical counterparts. Nowadays, the biggest hurdle is to evaluate which biorefinery concepts are environmental friendly and economic competitive at an early stage. Therefore, an innovative exploration was undertaken to create a biorefinery boutique for Switzerland and Europe for different future industrial scenarios.

Traditionally, there are two approaches to find biorefinery concepts. The first is to use overly simplified models, which can be analyzed according to their production portfolio and evaluated based on their profitability. In the second, detailed process simulations are used, which give detailed technological insight into each technology, but cannot be connected with each other due to their high complexity. This work employs a novel technique which connects detailed model biorefinery technologies in a network and finds tailor made biorefinery concepts for multiple future business scenarios.

Besides state of the art bioprocessing technologies, the biorefinery boutique incorporates life cycle assessment to indicate environmental issues and an economic assessment to project future profitability.