Scientists develop open-source software to perform techno-economic analysis of biorefineries

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Type of post: RESEARCH NEWS.

BioSTEAM (“Biorefinery Simulation and Techno-Economic Analysis Modules”), a new open-source simulation software package in Python developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, gives scientists, engineers, biotechnology companies and funding agencies a fast, flexible tool to analyse the economics of producing different biofuels and bioproducts.
Press release (EurekAlert!): “Scientists develop open-source software to analyze economics of biofuels, bioproducts”, 19/2/2020.
Research article: “BioSTEAM: A Fast and Flexible Platform for the Design, Simulation, and Techno-Economic Analysis of Biorefineries under Uncertainty”, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2020, 8, 8, 3302-3310. Publication Date: January 30, 2020.

Figure 1. BioSTEAM (“Biorefinery Simulation and Techno-Economic Analysis Modules”)

The research work, leaded by PhD Candidate Yoel Cortes-Pena and his advisor Jeremy Guest (both researchers are part of the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation, a US Department of Energy-funded Bioenergy Research Center), was published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

BioSTEAM allows researchers to quickly compare and prioritize strategies for converting biomass to fuels and products. It also generates data that can be used to evaluate the environmental impact of biorefineries, including greenhouse gas emissions, paving the way for a sustainable bioeconomy.

Techno-economic analysis (TEA) provides critical information on the economic viability, technological hurdles, and venture risk of producing biofuels and bioproducts. Typically, that requires specialized researchers who prepare detailed designs of biorefineries and run simulations. BioSTEAM provides the building blocks to simulate a biorefinery and its flexible framework allows for design, simulation and TEA. BioSTEAM's creators drew on open-source software developed by other researchers, including a data bank with 20,000 chemicals and their thermodynamic properties.

BioSTEAM is available online through the Python Package Index. To further increase availability of these tools, Guest's team is also designing a website with a graphical user interface where researchers can plug new parameters for a biorefinery simulation into existing configurations and download results within minutes.

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