This study presents a techno-economic assessment of a conceptual 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) biorefinery integrating ionic liquid (IL) pretreatment with lignocellulosic biomass conversion. This work provides a novel comparative techno-economic assessment of corn stover (CS) and brewer's spent grain (BSG) as feedstocks for IL-based 3-HP production. A literature-based process model was developed for the continuous production of 50,000 t/year of 3-HP and evaluated using both feedstocks. IL pretreatment was selected for its recyclability and potential to reduce chemical consumption compared with conventional pretreatment methods. Biomass-to-3-HP conversion efficiencies (on a dry basis) of 25.63% and 23.31% were obtained for CS and BSG, respectively, reflecting the lower fermentable sugar recovery achieved from BSG. Economic assessment yielded break-even selling prices (BESP) of $2472/tonne 3-HP for CS and $2643/tonne for BSG, indicating that both configurations are economically competitive with literature-reported bio-based 3-HP values. Sensitivity analysis identified yeast consumption as the dominant cost driver, followed by enzyme and IL requirements. The results highlight the potential of IL-assisted lignocellulosic biorefineries for competitive 3-HP production and identify the optimisation of yeast production and recycling, enhanced IL recovery and recycling, and co-product valorisation through bioethanol and lignin recovery as key opportunities to further reduce production costs.

Reducing process CO₂ emissions from lime production is essential for decarbonising one of the most carbon‑intensive industries. This study provides the first comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of indirectly heated calcium carbonate looping (IHCaL) applied to lime plants, evaluating five scenarios: a reference plant, two tail‑end IHCaL configurations, and two fully integrated IHCaL configurations, each fuelled by lignite or solid recovered fuel (SRF). Using ReCiPe 2016 midpoint and endpoint methods and a functional unit of 1 kg of lime, environmental impacts were quantified across 18 categories and assessed using Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis (10,000 iterations).All IHCaL scenarios substantially reduce global warming impact relative to the reference case, with reductions exceeding 80%. SRF‑fuelled systems achieve net‑negative mean global warming impact due to avoided landfill burdens, and tail-end configurations further benefited from electricity export. However, lignite‑fuelled IHCaL scenarios increase freshwater and marine ecotoxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and human carcinogenic toxicity, driven mainly by upstream lignite mining. SRF‑fuelled scenarios avoid these burdens but have higher mineral and fossil resource scarcity impacts related to natural gas use in SRF processing.IHCaL offers a strong route to decarbonisation of lime production, provided fuel supply chains are carefully managed. The findings show SRF as the environmentally preferred fuel and underscore the importance of upstream process optimisation and region‑specific electricity modelling.

The paper examines the design and techno-economic risk assessment of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) process using silica-polyethyleneimine (Si-PEI) as a solid sorbent. This CCS process was integrated into a cement plant with an annual production of one million tonnes of clinker, representing the EU's average plant size. The study benchmarks the Si-PEI CCS process against the monoethanolamine (MEA) CCS process, assuming both systems capture 90 % of the plant's annual emissions. Aspen Plus models, validated through literature and experiments, simulated the CCS processes. A preliminary hazard analysis assessed technical risks, while economic risks were quantified using the Monte Carlo method, considering uncertainties in feedstock supply cost, cement selling price, solvent/sorbent cost, energy cost, and emission allowance price. The Si-PEI CCS unit emerged as the most favourable investment, being less expensive and technically safer than the MEA CCS unit due to its modular design and lower operating temperature. The economic advantage is attributed to the lower operation temperature (120 degrees C vs. 150 degrees C) and lower regeneration energy requirement (2.85 GJ/tonne CO2 vs. 4.25 GJ/tonne CO2). Maintaining a purge rate below 0.03 % is crucial for the solid sorbent's benefits over the MEA CCS process.

The concept of Carbonate Looping Cycle (CaL) offers many advantages compared to other CO2 capture technologies within cement plants. The configurations currently discussed in the literature employ oxy-fuel combustion to supply the necessary heat for the calcination process in a single reactor. As a result, the process requires an air separation unit. The indirectly heated calcium looping (IHCaL) offers solutions to overcome the present limitations. Numerous heat pipes connecting a separate combustion unit to a calciner supply thermal energy for the calcination process. This study, based on the best available technology, recommends both full and tail-end IHCaL integrations within a commercial cement plant. Both systems provide over 1.3 million tonnes of cement per annum. The fully integrated option produces 309 GWh of electricity, compared to 875 GWh for the tail-end option. The CO2 avoidance rates for fully integrated and tail-end options are 0.83 and 0.88 t CO2/t Clinker, respectively. The tail-end version has a notably high capital cost, resulting in a high CO2 avoidance cost of 37.6/t CO2. On the other hand, the fully integrated version lowers the CO2 avoidance cost to 29.8/t CO2 because of a lower capital requirement and a smaller gap between the amount of CO2 captured and avoided.

Chemical looping gasification is a promising biomass conversion technology that could produce sustainable liquid transportation fuels on a large scale to reduce fossil fuel dependency. The current paper examines the technical, economic, and environmental performance of a biomass-to-liquid (BtL) process based on chemical looping gasification and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Two biomass feedstocks, i.e., pine forest residues and wheat straw, are selected for assessing the complete BtL production chain. The results of process simulations showed that both biomass types are suitable gasification feedstocks, with an overall energy efficiency of 53% and 52% for pine residues and wheat straw, respectively. The economic results show that the breakeven selling prices (BESP) are €816 and €781 per m3 for the pine forest residues and wheat straw pellets, respectively. However, if low-grade excess heat valorisation and CO2 credits are considered, the BESPs could meet or become lower than the target value of €700 per m3, making the BtL plant competitive with other biofuel plants. The CO2 avoidance cost is estimated at €74.4/tCO2 for pine residues and €61.3/tCO2 for wheat straw, when replacing fossil fuels. The results of the life cycle assessment study showed that the produced biofuels fulfil the requirements of the EU Renewable Energy Directive II, achieving the reduction in greenhouse gases emissions of up to 79% without carbon capture and storage (CCS) and up to 264% with CCS compared to fossil fuels.

The concept of the Carbonate Looping Cycle (CaL) offers many advantages compared to other CO2 capture technologies within cement plants. The current configurations discussed in the literature use oxy-fuel combustion to provide the required thermal energy for the endothermic calcination process in one reactor. Consequently, the process requires an air separation unit and further CO2 purifications. An indirectly heated calcium looping cycle (IHCaL) offers solutions to overcome the present limitations. The thermal energy required for the calcination process in this technology is provided by a large number of heat pipes connecting a separate combustion unit with a calciner reactor. This study suggests a tail-end and a full IHCaL integration within a commercial cement plant based on the best available technology. Both systems provide over 1.3 million tonnes of cement per annum. The electricity generation from the tail-end and the fully integrated option amounts to 792 GWh and 514 GWh, with internal electricity consumptions of 449 GWh and 375 GWh per year, respectively. The specific CO2 avoidance rates for tail-end and fully integrated options equate to 0.87 and 0.71 tonnes of captured CO2 per tonne of cement, respectively. The capital cost of the tail-end version is significantly high, leading to a high CO2 avoidance cost of €43/t CO2. Due to a lower capital requirement and a smaller gap between the amount of CO2 captured and avoided, the fully integrated version, on the other hand, reduces the CO2 avoidance cost to €24.4 per tonne CO2.

The main purpose of this work is to examine the techno-economics and environmental assessment of the Solid Recovered Fuel and Lignite to methanol pathway. Methanol is produced by gasifying the solid fuels to carbon monoxide and hydrogen and then reacting to produce methanol under pressure during the methanol synthesis process. The data obtained from the partners is used to adapt this study for the liquid fuel synthesis application. The in-house personal computer-based process simulation package, ECLIPSE, is used to perform process modelling and the techno-economic assessment of methanol production. The @Risk 8.2 © software is used to estimate the cost contingency of the project. The SimaPro © software package was used to carry out the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The gasifier plant contributes significantly to the capital costs. The results show that increased Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) in the feedstock mix has favourable economics due to the negative SRF charges resulting in a lower break-even selling price (BESP) than feedstock mixes with higher ratios of Lignite. Plant availability, capital investment and the time value of money are the factors that have the greatest impact on BESP. Increasing the SRF in the feedstock mix decreases the Global Warming impact of the methanol production compared to higher proportions of Lignite. However, the resultant impact is much greater than that of a natural gas reformer. Furthermore, the employment of off-gas recovery and carbon capture can further reduce both the Global Warming impact and the overall Single Score of the process, making it favourably comparable to the natural gas water gas shift configurations. Graphical abstract

The purpose of this work was to perform a technical and environmental analysis of methanol production from solid recovered fuel (SRF) and lignite feedstocks. The main driver was to ensure that while pursuing the dual goal of improving security of supply within the EU and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the power and transport sector, other environmental issues were not engineered into the system, and to provide recommendations to improve the process sustainability. The technical analysis was carried out using the inhouse ECLIPSE software and SimaPro was used for the environmental assessment. Data for the modelling was supplied by project partners, supply companies, databases, and literature where necessary. The results showed that increased SRF in the feedstock mix, decreased the environmental impact of methanol production, however, the environmental impact was greater than the natural gas reformer used for benchmarking. The sensitivity study considered off-gas thermal recovery and carbon capture, which for the 80% SRF, the impact was less than the natural gas reformer. It was concluded that SRF mixed with lignite to produce methanol could achieve the dual goal, providing off-gas recovery and carbon capture was employed. Other recommendations include considering onsite renewable electricity generation for process electricity.

The main objective of this paper is to carry out a techno-economic evaluation for the direct coal liquefaction (DCL) process based on the two primary conversion options under consideration: (a) catalytic coal liquefaction (CCL) - the use of non-donor solvents with added hydrogen pressure and (b) thermal coal liquefaction (TCL) - the use of solvents with some H-donor properties without hydrogen pressure. For this purpose, steady-state process models for the CCL and TCL are developed. The process modules addresses only the primary DCL process and do not include any upgrading to transport fuels as this will be conducted at refinery facilities. To better understand the process parameters and benefits of each option, detailed simulations have been conducted using the ECLIPSE modelling software. Technical results showed that daily oil yields (light and middle distillates) were around 1208 barrels from the CCL process and 924 barrels from the TCL process when the feed rate of brown coal was 256 t/d (on dry and ash free basis). Based on economic assumptions, the break-even oil price would be euro47.10/barrel with the CCL and euro57.81/barrel with the TCL.

The process of cement production emits large amounts of CO2 through both chemical reactions and fossil fuel combustion. Reducing CO2 emissions from the cement industry is becoming a global imperative. This work focuses on the technical and environmental evaluation for the integration of calcium carbonate looping (CCL) and oxy-fuel combustion processes into a cement plant for carbon capture and storage. Three scenarios have been established: 1. the base case cement plant without CO2 capture, 2. Cement plant with integrated CCL and 3. Oxy-fuel cement plant. The process models of the CCL capture plant and the oxy-fuel cement plant are developed. To better understand the technical parameters and benefits of each scenario, the ECLIPSE modelling software is used to a technical analysis. Life cycle analysis (LCA) has been conducted using the SimaPro software to determine the environmental impact of the capture technologies. Technical results showed that the cement plant equipped with the CCL illustrated better performance with specific CO2 emissions avoided of 1.211 CO2/t(Clinker) and the specific primary energy consumption of 2.39 GJ/t CO2 compared with the oxy-fuel cement plant with 0.711 CO2/t(clinker) and 3.31 GJ/t CO2. The main conclusion indicated that the CCL unit had a lesser environmental impact than the oxy-fuel combustion because of the additional benefit of electricity generation through the heat recovery system.

Integration of renewable electricity from wind farms into the electricity grid presents challenges because wind is a highly variable resource whereby the amount of power generated depends on local wind speed, air density and wind turbine characteristics. Energy storage is one possible approach to mitigate power fluctuations and quality issues. Among presently available technologies to store energy, Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) shows many attractive features. This work focuses on techno-economic modelling and analysis for the integration of wind turbines with CAES into the power grid. To have a deep understanding of the performance, characteristics and benefits of system integration, technical and economic models for CAES processes are developed in the processes simulation software ECLIPSE. To conduct this study, two scenarios that are each dependent on generation scales and locations were proposed; (1) centralised CAES (based on the diabatic method) (2) distributed CAES (based on the adiabatic approach). The nominal power generation of centralised and distributed CAES systems were given as 280 MWe and 5 MWe, respectively. The impact of CAES systems on the electricity market is also discussed. Techno-economic analysis of the modelled centralised CAES system showed round-trip efficiency of around 53.6% (and around 56.7% for the modelled distributed CAES system). Specific investment was found to be around €585/kWe (€2452/kWe) and break-even electricity selling price to be around €111/MWh (€275/MWh). Their CO2 emissions were found to be compatible with the average CO2 emissions of UK CCGT power generation.

This work focuses on the techno-economic and environmental evaluation for an existing pulverised coal-fired power plant retrofitted with the calcium carbonate looping (CCL) process. The CCL process is an attractive technology due to relatively low efficiency penalties. To better understand the performance characteristics and benefits of systems integration, the steady-state model for the CCL process, developed in ECLIPSE, was used to perform a techno-economic analysis. The simulation results showed that the net efficiency for the selected 600 MW PC power plant equipped with the CCL process was 33.8% (lower heating value) at 94% CO2 capture ratio. With respect to the reference plant without CO2 capture, this resulted in a lower efficiency penalty (7.4% points). The capital cost and maintenance and operating costs were estimated according to a bottom-up approach using the information gained through the mass and energy balance. Specific investment was found to be (sic)1778/kWe, which is approximately 21% higher than for the reference plant. The levelized cost of electricity would be (sic)77.3/MWh with CCL CO2 capture. The CO2 capture cost and CO2 avoidance cost relative to the corresponding reference plant were (sic)16.3/tCO(2) captured and (sic)22.3/tCO(2) avoided, respectively. The SimaPro software was used to perform a life cycle analysis of the capture technology to determine its environmental impact. The results illustrated that the overall climate change impact had been reduced by 75%, while the fossil depletion impact was increased by 22%.

Integrating variable renewable energy from wind farms into power grids presents challenges for system operation, control, and stability due to the intermittent nature of wind power. One of the most promising solutions is the use of compressed air energy storage (CAES). The main purpose of this paper is to examine the technical and economic potential for use of CAES systems in the grid integration. To carry out this study, 2 CAES plant configurations: adiabatic CAES (A-CAES) and diabatic CAES (D-CAES) were modelled and simulated by using the process simulation software ECLIPSE. The nominal compression and power generation of both systems were given at 100 and 140MWe, respectively. Technical results showed that the overall energy efficiency of the A-CAES was 65.6%, considerably better than that of the D-CAES at 54.2%. However, it could be seen in the economic analysis that the breakeven electricity selling price (BESP) of the A-CAES system was much higher than that of the D-CAES system at (sic)144/MWh and (sic)91/MWh, respectively. In order to compete with large-scale fossil fuel power plants, we found that a CO2 taxation scheme (with an assumed CO2-tax of (sic)20/tonne) improved the economic performance of both CAES systems significantly. This advantage is maximised if the CAES systems use low carbon electricity during its compression cycle, either through access to special tariffs at times of low carbon intensity on the grid, or by direct coupling to a clean energy source, for example a 100-MW class wind farm.

Pulverised coal-fired (PC) power plants are among the major technologies used to generate electricity for power generation around the world. Coal-fired systems are generally considered to have high greenhouse gas emission intensities, apart from power plants that employ CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technology. As a technology option, calcium carbonate looping can be employed to remove carbon dioxide from the PC flue gas streams. Calcium carbonate looping is an attractive technology due to relatively low efficiency penalties. To better understand the performance characteristics and benefits of such a system integration, the ECLIPSE modelling software is used to perform a techno-economic analysis of the calcium carbonate looping system integrated in to an existing hard coal power plant. The overall system efficiency and the CO2 capture rate is evaluated based on a mass and energy balance calculation as part of the modelling. The capital costs, and maintenance and operating costs are estimated according to a bottom-up approach using the information gained through a mass and energy balance. The SimaPro software is used to perform a life cycle analysis of the capture technology to determine its environmental impact. The calcium carbonate looping system is also compared to other CCS solutions.

A power study was carried out to attain power profiles for the machines used by a Medical Device Manufacturing company in Ireland, on a particular value stream (VS) for two products, in order to; (a) understand the machines’ electrical consumption during productive and idle states, and (b) ascertain the utility services such as compressed air, coolant, process water (deionised water) and dust extraction consumed at each machine station during productive and idle states. The resultant machine profiles and utility services analysis were used to determine the energy usage baseline for the value stream and the Significant Energy Users (SEUs) for each product line. The study demonstrated that energy reduction during idle periods of time could be significantly reduced with either no-cost or low cost measures.