Modelling and simulation of the alcohol to jet-fuel process (ATJ) from bio-ethanol

Abstract

The huge energy dependence of mankind regarding to fossil fuels has caused severe environmental damage; thus alternative, clean and sustainable energy sources have been proposed and studied. This situation has been confirmed in 2020 due to pandemic by COVID-19, wherein the renewables energies has been identified as the only resilient energy source with low impact. In this sense, the transport sector, specifically the aviation sector continues with the objective of reducing its CO₂ emissions for 2050, using as primary strategy the biojet fuel. One of the certified processes by ASTM to produce biojet fuel is the Alcohol to Jet process (ATJ), which uses alcohols from biomass sources as raw material. However, this process has been little developed to commercial level; for this reason, efforts should be focused on proposing strategies that allow reducing their production costs. Simulation models are useful tools to reach such objective. In this work, the modelling and simulation of ATJ process to produce biojet fuel from bio-ethanol produced previously from lignocellulosic residues conversion is presented. The process simulation is carried out in Aspen Plus V.10.0 software. This process is evaluated and analyzed by the total annual cost and CO₂ emissions counting. According to results, 21.1 % biojet fuel conversion is obtained, regarding to bio-ethanol feeding, which represented 35.3 % of total obtained products. On the other hand, 86.3 % of TAC is due to hydrogen cost. In regard to CO₂ emissions has been estimated an annual saving of 65,741.04 ton CO₂, due to total power requirements are only 23.7 % of electricity generated by the turbines, collocated to conditioning process streams. Based on this analysis, the ATJ process is a promissory option to produce biojet fuel.