Co-processing of gas oil and bio-oil derived from algae and straw: Techno-economic analysis

As bio-energy is the only carbon-containing renewable energy source, its development and utilization are of great significance to alleviate the energy crisis and the greenhouse effect. However, the production cost of bio-fuels is higher due to the higher investment cost of bio-refineries. To reduce the production cost of bio-fuels, considering the similar processing equipment of refineries and bio-refineries, bio-oil derived from both biomass and algae is co-processed with vacuum gas oil (VGO) in an existing catalytic cracking unit, and then gasoline and diesel products with renewable carbon can be obtained. To further understand whether the co-processing technology has the popularization and application value, two co-processing scenarios, VGO co-processing with bio-oils produced through fast pyrolysis or hydrothermal liquefaction (FPCP scenario and HTLCP scenario), are evalu-ated through techno-economic analysis (TEA). The TEA results showed that the minimum gasoline selling prices in FPCP scenario and HTLCP scenario were $3.497 and $2.910 per gallon, HTLCP scenario provided a clear economic advantage. Sensitivity analysis showed that gasoline prices were extremely sensitive to fluctuations of fuel yield and VGO price.