1. Lipid-producing sorghum as a source of biodiesel
BRC Science Highlight
Lipid-producing sorghum as a source of biodiesel
Objective Evaluate the economic advantages of energy sorghum engineered to produce lipids that allow for coproduction of diesel and ethanol.
Approach
Designed a process model to simulate coproduction of diesel and ethanol from engineered energy sorghum.
Compared to a biorefinery process where unmodified energy sorghum was refined into only ethanol.
Technoeconomic assessment was performed by estimating the minimum ethanol selling price (MESP)–the price by which a biofuel must be sold at in order to break even after 30 years–for energy sorghum engineered to produce lipids.
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Results/Impacts
Sorghum with 10% lipid content that could be refined into biodiesel, ethanol, and other bioproducts, would lower the MESP by $0.62 to $2.46/gal from $3.08/gal in unmodified energy sorghum.
Increasing the lipid content to 13% generates an estimated MESP of $2.25/gal.
The most important factors in enhancing sorghum’s value are increasing its lipid content and extraction efficiency while reducing solvent-to-solids ratio in the extraction process.
Fasahati, P. et al., “Process design and economics for production of advanced biofuels from genetically modified lipid−producing sorghum.” Applied Energy 239, pp (2019), [DOI: /j.apenergy ]
GLBRC February 2019