Techno-economic evaluation of obtaining valuable rare sugars from thermo-mechanical pulping side streams utilizing the latest technology

The current work describes a process for converting hemicellulose-rich industrial side streams to specialty sugars utilizing green technology and commercially available acidic heterogeneous catalysts. Focus is placed on the detailed overall process design and techno-economic assessment of integrating the concept into an existing thermo-mechanical pulping plant, namely the Hallsta Paper Mill, located near Hallstavik in Sweden. The techno-economic analysis is based on laboratory relevant results for the process under study including catalyst performance and kinetics as well as extensive operational and economic data on cost formation. A detailed sensitivity analysis was also performed to evaluate the performance of concept in a changing economic environment. The results show that the process would be highly profitable in the studied case with a rather high safety margin. The process is widely applicable to other biorefinery concepts with hemicellulose containing side streams and the presented techno-economic analysis is very relevant for the evaluation of site-specific viability.