The objective of process intensification (PI) in the context of biorefining operations is to lead to a reduction in operation costs, feedstock and energy resources, greenhouse gas emissions and higher yields, while increasing operation safety, by concentrating on technologies which can intensify processing methods and create an integrated biorefinery concept. PI methods in general and specifically for biorefining operations have not featured strongly in the vast standards literature.
However, examining the Standards and Guidance Documents prepared or under consideration by the CEN/CENELEC Technical Committees, it is possible to identify a significant number where they will impact the bioeconomy from the equipment, process, safety and /or environmental aspects.
The CEN Workshop will agree on a standard procedure for evaluating if the use of process intensification measures for biorefining processes is economically and sustainably viable.
The following tasks must be considered in the procedure. Flowsheeting of the conventional process for the detailed analysis of its mass/energy balances. A knowledge-based engineering approach is used for selecting and integrating of process intensification modules (PIM) into the flowsheeting. Simulations of PIMs integrated processes are performed for the process optimization followed by necessary experimental validations. These steps are accompanied by the assessment of the environmental performance (containing LCA), the techno-economic assessment and the social impact assessment.
The planned CEN Workshop Agreement is intended to be used by biorefinery plant manufacturers, its owners and operators as well as process design engineers. Since conventional refining of plant biomass often needs to process diluted aqueous product streams still containing lots of by-products and impurities, energy- and cost-intensive upstream and downstream processes are essential for product recovery. Thus, the aim of this CEN Workshop is to develop an evaluation procedure to assess whether PI measures are sustainably and economically meaningful against the conventional processes.
More information about the scope and background of the future CWA are available in the draft Project Plan attached.
The kick-off meeting will be held on 2023-10-05 10:00-14:00 online. People interested to participate in the kick-off meeting can register via mail to syad.akkoub@din.de.
All interested parties are invited to submit comments on the draft Project Plan using the commenting form below, to the Workshop secretary, Mr Syad AKKOUB (syad.akkoub@din.de) by 2023-09-30.
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