Production of adipic acid from forest residues - Modelling and investigation of the downstream process in Aspen Plus

Abstract

Within the chemical industry fossil resources are commonly used as raw material for producing desired chemicals. Due to that fossil resources are a finite resource and that using these resources result into CO2 emissions that have an environmental impact there is an eager to find new alternative production method within the chemical industry. Lignocellulosic, plant biomass, is seen as a promising renewable feedstock that could replace the current fossil feedstock used in the chemical industry. In this present work an alternative manufacturing process of adipic acid is investigated. Adipic acid is a chemical which plays an important role in the production of nylon. The most common commercial way to produce adipic acid today is by using benzene originated from crude oil as a feedstock. In this work an alternative method where adipic acid is produced from glucose that originates from lignocellulosic is being investigated. Focus in this work have been to study the downstream process where the separation of adipic acid from the process stream is carried out. The downstream process has been designed in Aspen Plus and a feasible solution for extracting adipic acid is presented. Different byproducts that could interfere with the separation process have been investigated. A scenario analysis was carried out where the impact of an increased amount of byproducts was studied. No impact on the feasibility of the process was noticed. The results of the model has been compared with a previously made thesis with in this area from a production and energy demand point of view.