Due to the exhaustion and increased pressure regarding the environmental and political aspects of fossil fuels, the industrial focus has switched towards renewable energy resources. Lignocellulosic biowaste can come from several sources, such as industrial waste, agricultural waste, forestry waste, and bioenergy crops and processed into bioethanol via a biochemical pathway. Although much research has been done on the ethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass, the economic viability of a bioethanol plant in the Northern Netherlands is yet unknown, and therefore, examined. In this thesis, the feasibility study of a bioethanol plant treating sugar beet pulp, cow manure, and grass straw is conducted using the simulation software SuperPro Designer. Results show that it is not economically viable to treat the tested lignocellulosic biomass for the production of bioethanol, since all three original cases result in a negative net present value (NPV). An alternative would be to exclude the pretreatment step from the process. Although this results in a lower production of bioethanol per year, the plant treating sugar beet pulp (SBP) and grass straw (GS) becomes economically viable since the costs have significantly decreased.
Plant parasitaire aaltjes (nematoden) zijn een groot probleem in de land- en tuinbouw. Chemische bestrijding is niet langer gewenst. Biologische bestrijding van aaltjes is een welkom alternatief. Het Afrikaantje (Tagetes erecta) is een biologische bestrijder van het uiterst schadelijke wortellesie aaltje Pratylenchus penetrans, dat veel schade in de bollen- en aardappelteelt veroorzaakt. De inzet van Tagetes wordt beperkt door de hoge teeltkosten zonder dat daar een oogstbaar product tegenover staat. Tagetes wordt na teelt in zijn geheel in de bodem als groenbemester ingewerkt. De bloemen van Tagetes zijn rijk aan de carotenoïde inhoudstoffen luteïne en zeaxanthine. Luteïne heeft een actieve werking onder andere bij het voorkomen van leeftijd gerelateerde netvlies degeneratie (ARMD) en als anti-aging ingrediënt bij huidverzorgende cosmetica. Luteïne is een krachtig antioxidant en beschermt de huid tegen schadelijke UV-stralen. Het doel van dit onderzoek is het ontwikkelen van een circulair ontwerp voor het duurzaam bestrijden van plant parasitaire aaltjes met Tagetes vanggewassen waarbij restproducten van de biologische bestrijding benut worden voor creëren van producten met extra toegevoegde waarde voor anti-aging cosmetica. Op deze wijze ontstaat een nieuwe productieketen die een volwaardig alternatief is voor chemische grondontsmetting waarbij tegelijkertijd hoogwaardige consumententoepassingen mogelijk zijn. Luteïne is met superkritische CO2 als groen extractie middel in zeer zuivere vorm uit de bloemen van Afrikaantjes geëxtraheerd. Mogelijke verbetering is door ook plantaardige olie (zonnebloemolie) te gebruiken. Luteïne extracten zijn in-vitro en in-vivo getest. Luteïne voorkwam collageen afbraak in huidcellen. Gebruik van luteïne rijke cosmetische crèmes door vrijwilligers verhoogde huidhydratie en huid elasticiteit.Kosten-Baten analyse van het circulaire luteïne productieproces met superkritisch CO2 extractie liet zien dat deze keten in principe rendabel kan zijn als plantaardige al mede-oplosmiddel gebruikt wordt. Hiermee is in principe een duurzaam circulair proces te creëren voor zowel biologische betrijding van planteziekten als voor hoogwaardige consumentenproducten.
The government of Ukraine has adopted the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) with clear goals and a roadmap to facilitate its energy transition towards renewable sources. This is done because of both climate concerns as well as reasons related to Ukraine’s foreign policy which led the government to decide that Ukraine should work more on its own energy independence. Currently the percentage of renewable energy sources in Ukraine is among the lowest of the entire Europe and there is only slow development in terms of the growth of the sector, even though there is a lot of available biomass, given the large and flat surface of the country with a well-developed agricultural sector. As in most countries in the world, there is a quite intensive and well-developed debate in Ukraine about the energy sector, energy usage and the necessary transition towards more renewable types of energy. One of the consequences of it is that Ukraine is one of the partner countries in the Paris agreement and committed itself to reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the future. That means that a transformation towards renewable energy is needed, even though currently in Ukraine only a low percentage of energy is generated by sustainable sources. The general picture is that in Ukraine the development of the renewable energy sector is going not as fast as could have been. In other words, there are several barriers present that hinder the energy transition. One of the issues behind such a barrier may be a limited access to technology, or problems with legislation or other issues which may be unknown so far, but certainly relevant for foreign investors. The Ukrainian government adopted the so-called Renewable Energy Directive (RED), set goals for the energy transition and support the transition itself. In some areas progress was made, for example in the growing number of biomass fired boilers, but still Ukraine remains one of the European countries with the lowest percentage of renewable energy production. Therefore, in order to identify currently existing barriers and help to find possible applications of new technologies in Ukraine, the Dutch Enterprise Agency (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemerschap) commissioned this study. It was done within the framework of the Partners in Business on Bioenergy program. The focus of this study is on analysing the renewable energy sector, with special attention for biomass, in the form of biomass-based heating and biomass for biofuels. Of course, other parts of the renewable energy sector such as solar and wind energy are also taken into consideration. The second part consists of a case study to determine the business case for direct processing of sugar beets with Betaprocess as a possible application of biomass to biofuel production in Ukraine. The third study is aiming at determining the amount of biomass that can safely be taken from the fields, without negatively affecting the fertility of the soil. These sub-studies mentioned in the previous paragraph offer a better understanding of the renewable energy market in general and biomass/biofuel applications in particular. This study sheds light on several important questions that entrepreneurs and/or other foreign investors may have about investing in Ukraine. Even though it is well-known that doing business in Ukraine is challenging, it is also very important to have a clear picture of the opportunities that this country offers, within the limits that nature sets, in order to avoid negative consequences like soil degradation. The objective of this report is to find out about which opportunities and barriers exist in the Ukrainian transition towards renewable energy generation, to calculate the profitability of new biomass-processing technologies as well as finding out limitations of biomass usage.
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