title: Techno-economic and uncertainty analysis of in situ and ex situ fast pyrolysis for biofuel production.
abstract: This study evaluates the techno-economic uncertainty in cost estimates for two emerging technologies for biofuel production: in situ and ex situ catalytic pyrolysis. The probability distributions for the minimum fuel-selling price (MFSP) indicate that in situ catalytic pyrolysis has an expected MFSP of $1.11 per liter with a standard deviation of 0.29, while the ex situ catalytic pyrolysis has a similar MFSP with a smaller deviation ($1.13 per liter and 0.21 respectively). These results suggest that a biorefinery based on ex situ catalytic pyrolysis could have a lower techno-economic uncertainty than in situ pyrolysis compensating for a slightly higher MFSP cost estimate. Analysis of how each parameter affects the NPV indicates that internal rate of return, feedstock price, total project investment, electricity price, biochar yield and bio-oil yield are parameters which have substantial impact on the MFSP for both in situ and ex situ catalytic pyrolysis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50010, United States.
authors.forename: Boyan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50010, United States.
authors.forename: Longwen
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ou
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50010, United States; Bioeconomy Institute, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, United States.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Dang
authors.affiliation: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States.
authors.forename: Pimphan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.affiliation: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States.
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50010, United States; Bioeconomy Institute, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, United States.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50010, United States; Bioeconomy Institute, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, United States. Electronic address: markmw@iastate.edu.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wright
mesh_terms: D056804:Biofuels / Q000191:economics*; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods*; D002384:Catalysis; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D011336:Probability; D035501:Uncertainty
chemical_list: D056804:Biofuels
keywords: Ex situ; In situ; Pyrolysis; Techno-economics analysis; Uncertainty analysis