Volume 12 Issue 3

This literature review aims to provide a systematic analysis of studies on the financial aspects of producing torrefied biomass and torrefied pellets. There are substantial differences in the specific technologies, operating conditions, scale of the demonstration, and properties of biomass feedstock. There is a lack of reports that consider the entire supply chain, which is required for an understanding of the high-cost steps. To obtain a robust view of the torrefaction processes’ financial prospects the authors have used both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed papers that allowed the researchers to include thirty-one papers in this analysis. All these studies establish that the prices of the biomass and the final torrefied product are critical. The product yield and caloric content, which are related to pricing, were also key financial drivers. The lower freight costs due to high-energy density of the torrefied pellets was recognized and calculated, but some other benefits were not quantified. There is a need for a detailed and flexible torrefaction financial model that includes variations in financial assumptions and biomass properties. Given the uncertainty around many specific steps, there is value in including stochastic tools in these financial analyses.

Lactic acid is an important platform chemical with a wide range of applications. Production of lactic acid by fermentation is advantageous because renewable and low cost raw materials can be used as substrates. After fermentation, the broth needs to be purified to obtain pure lactic acid for further uses. Thus, efficient downstream processes are very important because they account for 50% of the production costs. This review discusses different processes that are currently employed for lactic acid recovery, focusing on precipitation, solvent extraction, and separation with membranes. Advances in such recovery processes and drawbacks that limit the application of these technologies at the industrial level are also presented.