Energy recovery from sugarcane biomass residues: Challenges and opportunities of bio-oil production in the light of second generation biofuels

The lack of an alternative energy carrier to electricity with storage capability for use in off-season has to date been an unsolvable question for the sugar agroindustry. The improvement in cogeneration capacity via implementation of condensing extraction steam turbines or biomass integrated gasifier/gas turbine combined cycle and the barriers for their implementation were analyzed. The introduction of a fast pyrolysis (3 tons/h) module (FPM3) as a solution for off-season energy demand in the sugarcane agroindustry was also analyzed. The production cost of 1 ton of bio-oil for FPM3 condition was calculated at 87 USD/ton of bio-oil (0.104 USD/l of bio-oil). The economic feasibility of the FPM3 was estimated, comparing the added values for two alternatives: first alternative regarding the sugar and bioethanol simultaneous production (first generation biofuel production) and second alternative regarding the sugar and bio-oil simultaneous production (second generation biofuel production). Although the highest added value figure for a ton of sugarcane (49.30 USD) was gotten by the second alternative, the bioethanol production for cars fuel continues to be most attractive business option because of large fuel ethanol market demand. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3259170]