Process Design and Techno-Economic Feasibility Analysis of an Integrated Pineapple Processing Waste Biorefinery Shivali Banerjee, Meghana Munagala, Yogendra Shastri, Ranganathan Vijayaraghavan, Antonio F. Patti, and Amit Arora* Cite This: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsengineeringau.1c00028 Read Online ACCESS Metrics & More Article Recommendations * sı Supporting Information ABSTRACT: This study assesses the techno-economic feasibility of an integrated biorefinery based on pineapple processing waste. Xylooligosaccharides, ethanol, xylitol, bromelain, and silage are among the key products of the biorefinery. The economic performance of the processes involved in generating the biorefinery products was assessed based on calculations performed in ASPEN Plus. Seven different scenarios were designed with individual and multiple products and were further evaluated for a plant capacity of 10 tons per hour as the base case. Sensitivity analysis showed that plant capacity and selling price of value-added products were the most important factors that influenced plant economics. The plant capacity twice the base capacity often made the venture economically feasible as in the case of scenarios 1 (production of xylitol and silage) and 7 (production of bromelain, xylitol, and silage) with an NPV of $9.2 million and $8.9 million, respectively. Increasing the selling price of the products by 25% of the base case made scenarios 1 and 6 (production of bromelain, xylitol, ethanol, and silage) economically viable (NPV > 0). A decrease in the price for procurement of pineapple waste from $25/ton to $10/ton made scenario 4 (production of bromelain and silage) profitable with an NPV of $3.3 million and IRR of 42%. KEYWORDS: pineapple processing waste, biorefinery, bromelain, xylitol, techno-economic model ■ INTRODUCTION The advancement of the bio-based economy over the dominant fossil-based economy highlights the requirement to shift toward sustainability to address the emerging environ- mental challenges. 1 Biorefineries are characterized as the leading example of a biobased economy. The biorefinery concept is very similar to a petrochemical refinery where different processes are integrated to obtain biofuels, bio- chemicals, heat, and power as the major value-added products from biomass. 2 Recent studies have focused upon valorization pathways for food processing wastes, specifically cereals, oil crops, fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, dairy, eggs, sugar crops, and tubers. 3,4 Most of the waste biorefinery concepts are broadly based upon single conversion processes to produce biobased chemicals and biofuels. 5 As reported in the literature, the technology readiness levels (TRL) are higher for the conversion of biomass into energy. 6 Since some of these technologies such as anaerobic digestion are implemented on a commercial scale, the real costs for a similar biorefinery are easily available. However, the biorefineries focused upon the production of biochemicals and value-added products present a lower TRL, and hence, the techno-economic assessment is difficult and uncertain. 7 Most of the economic analyses of individual biorefineries are conducted using commercial process simulators such as ASPEN Plus, SuperPro Designer, and others. 8,9 The economic viability of such biorefineries is assessed by integrating the fuel/energy production pathways along with those of value-added products and biochemicals. A few recent studies have reported the techno-economic feasibility assessment of biorefineries exclusively focused on fruit wastes such as citrus wastes, 10,11 olive wastes, 12 mango waste, 13 and spent pulp of berries. 14 To the best of authors’ knowledge, there is no published work on techno-economic feasibility assessment for a pineapple processing waste biorefinery. The global production of pineapples was estimated to be 28.3 million tons in 2018. 15 The annual production of pineapples in India and Australia is reported to be 1.7 million 16 and 0.076 million tons, 17 respectively, in 2018. Received: October 15, 2021 Revised: January 22, 2022 Accepted: January 24, 2022 Article pubs.acs.org/engineeringau © XXXX The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society A https://doi.org/10.1021/acsengineeringau.1c00028 ACS Eng. Au XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXX Downloaded via 54.226.254.65 on April 3, 2022 at 04:50:08 (UTC). See https://pubs.acs.org/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles.