Bottlenecks and potentials for the gasification of lignocellulosic biomasses and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis: A case study on the production of advanced liquid biofuels in Brazil

Highlights: :• Existing sugarcane biorefineries in Brazil are the main advantage to implement BtL route; • High costs of equipment and technologies are the main challenges to economic viability; • Bioethanol commercialization helps to make the integrated BtL plant feasible; • Base case presents IRR close to the minimum rate accepted by the sector (10–12%); • Lower equipment costs and higher ethanol prices combined to improve the process viability. Brazil is one of the major players in the biofuels market worldwide, and its existing biorefining infrastructure can be used as the basis to support the implementation of new advanced biofuel production routes at a large scale. This paper demonstrates the benefits of the integration of both biochemical and thermochemical processes and how this configuration has the potential to overcome the main barriers that the Biomass-to-Liquids (BtL) route currently faces. Important bottlenecks such as the high equipment costs, low industrial process efficiency, and high feedstock prices were studied in detail by assessing a series of production scenarios that take into account the Brazilian context for building new biorefinery plants. By carrying out a techno-economic analysis aided by a simulation framework (the Virtual Sugarcane Biorefinery), we evaluated the potential technological synergies of a BtL plant processing sugarcane bagasse and straw integrated into a first-generation sugarcane ethanol distillery. Results in this paper indicate that it is possible to achieve economic feasibility with the implementation of the BtL route in the country. Under a base scenario, a greenfield plant would be very close to the range of economic viability (IRR from 10 to 12% per year), whereas more optimistic economic conditions (e.g., lower CAPEX and higher fuel prices) would induce even better results (IRR greater than 16% per year). Doubling the milling capacity also favors the BtL process, with IRR reaching 20% per year if the best economic conditions are achieved in the Brazilian context.