Process simulation of HMF production from wheat bran and sugar beet pulp

Abstract: Due to the progressing environmental problems related to global warming, the chemical industry is transitioning from fossil to renewable feedstocks. For added environmental benefits, surplus biomass from the agricultural industry which currently does not have any high-value applications can be used for production of chemicals. This master thesis is written as a part of the tech-no-economic analysis in the Farm2furan research project at Lund University, in which surplus agricultural biomass streams in Sweden are used for production of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) in a future biorefinery. HMF is a platform chemical, and chemicals produced from HMF can be used for production of monomers, resins, textile dyes, pharmaceuticals, flavors, and fragrances. In this thesis, the simulation software Aspen Plus was used to build a model for production of HMF from wheat bran and sugar beet pulp. To assess how the system behaved a simplified model was built initially, after which a more advanced model including all unit operations need-ed was built. The simulations showed that the wheat bran- and sugar beet pulp-based processes were favored by different combinations of pretreatment steps, which also greatly affected the amount of physical equipment needed. This depends on the composition of the raw material itself and the accessibility of the monosaccharides in the raw material, which ultimately affects the economic viability of the simulated processes. For wheat bran, the maximum yield of HMF from the entirety of the raw material was 19.4%, while the theoretical yield was 29.8%. For sugar beet pulp, the maximum yield was 5.6% while the theoretical yield was 17.7%. Even though both processes showed potential for profitability at this early stage of the process design, the wheat bran process consistently had greater potential with the used indicator. Because of the assumptions made in the process simulation, it is recommended that a more thorough process simulation is made including reaction kinetics before moving on to a potential pilot plant.