Another @jbei.lbl.gov publication hot off the presses! 7 herbaceous, 9 woody, 4 food processing residues, and 2 blends all decontructed using butylamine. We can hit $1.3 to 6.1/kg sugar now, process intensification needed to hit $0.45β0.79/kg. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

pubs.acs.orgCost of Deconstruction Depots for Diversified, Waste-Based Lignocellulosic Sugars Using Distillable SolventsTransitioning to a bioeconomy that makes use of low-emission and waste feedstocks requires greater flexibility to accommodate seasonal variations and mitigate long-term storage challenges, such as material loss and fire risk. To achieve this goal, biomass deconstruction technologies must efficiently handle diverse feedstocks. Here, we assess the cost of using butylamineβa distillable solventβto deconstruct 22 different biomass feedstocks: 7 herbaceous, 9 woody, 4 food processing residues, and 2 blends. Lignocellulosic sugar production costs, based on current empirical data, range from $1.3 to 6.1/kg, suggesting that substantial improvements are required to compete with conventional sugars. The high solvent loading (850 g/kg of whole slurry) is a process bottleneck. Lowering the solvent loading to 59 g/kg of whole slurry, demonstrated in an L-scale reactor using poplar biomass, reduces the minimum sugar selling price by 33%. Solvent loading and recovery, solid loading, sugar yield, enzyme use, and delivered biomass cost all play key roles in reaching sugar production costs of $0.45β0.79/kg. Strategic feedstock blending to maximize carbohydrate content, process optimization to improve conversion efficiency, and the selection of low-cost feedstocks are important to advancing feedstock-flexible biorefineries.