Economic Assessment of Supercritical CO2 Extraction of Waxes as Part of a Maize Stover Biorefinery.

ABSTRACT: To date limited work has focused on assessing the economic viability of scCO2 extraction to obtain waxes as part of a biorefinery. This work estimates the economic costs for wax extraction from maize stover. The cost of manufacture (COM) for maize stover wax extraction was found to be € 88.89 per kg of wax, with the fixed capital investment (FCI) and utility costs (CUT) contributing significantly to the COM. However, this value is based solely on scCO2 extraction of waxes and does not take into account the downstream processing of the biomass following extraction. The cost of extracting wax from maize stover can be reduced by utilizing pelletized leaves and combusting the residual biomass to generate electricity. This would lead to an overall cost of € 10.87 per kg of wax (based on 27% com

SUBMITTER: Attard TM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4581208 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature