BIOMASS (TO BIOETHANOL) SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGN AND OPTIMISATION

摘要

Biomass is a flexible energy source that can be used for production of heat, power, transport fuels and biomaterials. The increasing interest in biomass energy and biofuels has been the result of many benefits such as the potential to reduce GHG emissions, energy security, the capacity to convert a wide variety of waste into clean energy and the prospects for rural and regional development. One of the most important success factors for the increased biomass utilization is the structure of the respective supply chain and the selection of the converted - final energy form (heat, and/or power, and/or biofuels) according to the demand profile and the resources based allocation. Despite the significant development of biodiesel in our country, another extensively used biofuel, bioethanol, is not produced in Greece so far. The objective of the present work is to make a preliminary design of biomass to bioethanol supply chain and more specifically to focus its attention on the raw materials collection and the production plant preliminary design. More specifically, in the present work the residual biomass raw materials suitable for bioethanol production that are available in exploitable rates are identified and are located in the Greek map. Then the various bioethanol production processes and technologies - depending on the type of raw materials - are analyzed and assessed.The residual biomass raw materials identified may also be processed for heat and/or power generation, in addition to bioethanol production. Therefore, the integrated biomass exploitation supply chain is analyzed and the various parameters affecting its efficiency are evaluated.Special emphasis is given on the design organization of the raw materials (biomass) collection network. Based on the existing experience from other supply chain networks, the present work makes a suggestion for the organization of the collection network that is feasible and may also be applied in other similar cases.