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