Plant-wide Process Simulation of Ethanol Production from Empty Fruit Bunch

Abstract

Lignocellulosic biomass exhibits itself as an alternative material for ethanol production. Ethanol can be synthesized from cellulose and hemicellulose obtained from an empty fruit bunch. Aspen simulation is used for process design and its capacity. Hot Compressed Water pretreatment (HCW) is the first step to improving ethanol production. The optimal conditions of HCW are 190°C and 15 minute with a cellulose content of 56.56%. Ethanol is converted from lignocellulosic derivative via hydrolysis and fermentation processes. The extractive distillation system is proposed to purify. There are two different operating conditions (reflux ratio, feed stage, and distillate to feed ratio) at the solvent to feed ratio (S/F) of about 0.51. Ethanol of 10,000 kg could be produced from 48,000 kg of EFB with product purity greater than 99.5 wt%.