Feasibility Study of a Technology for Catalytic Low Pressure Depolymerization of Biomass to Diesel in Thailand

Sammanfattning: The study has been conducted in collaboration with Swestep AB, a Swedish company that specializes in the conversion of waste to valuable products via the KDV technology. The study explores the possibility of using cassava chips and cassava pulp as a potential feedstock in the production of synthetic diesel and compares the KDV method with fermentation, a conventional method of using cassava chips and cassava pulp in Thailand. To obtain the carbon yield, amount of product and system efficiency, a mass and energy balances were first performed on wood feedstock data provided by the company. The balances were thereafter used as a basis for a simulation analysis of the cassava feedstock. The diesel product yield is produced through a KDV 150 plant using 551kg/h of the different feedstock; wood, cassava chips and cassava pulp resulting in different amounts of diesel product 150 L/h, 116.79 L/h and 121.31 L/h, respectively. For cassava, the C yield in diesel is 0.41 while the C yield of ethanol production is 0.14, since C in the ethanol production is converted into other matters. Besides, the system efficiency of the KDV plant with different types of feedstock is around 0.84 because some parts of the KDV plant is self-supplied whereas the ethanol production plant (55% of system efficiency) is not. Economical evaluations of the KDV 5000 and ethanol production plant were performed. The KDV 5000 with cassava pulp as feedstock produces 31 ML/year and is feasible for investment in Thailand due to the low price of the feedstock which is driving the operation cost (15.167 baht/L or 0.46 USD/L). This is lower than the selling price (21.329 baht/L or 0.65 USD/L) whereas the KDV 5000 plant with cassava chips is not feasible. The KDV plant with cassava pulp as a feedstock will reach the breakeven point after running for 7 years. The ethanol production process with cassava chip as feedstock produces 49 M liter/year and has an operation cost of 19.693 baht/liter (0.6 USD/L) which is higher than the KDV plant due to the feedstock price. The selling price of ethanol is 23.11 baht/l (0.705 USD/L) which resulted in the process reaching the breakeven point after 14 years.