Technoeconomic and Life-Cycle Assessment for Electrocatalytic Production of Furandicarboxylic Acid

2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA)
is a platform chemical for polyethylene
furanoate (PEF) manufacturing, a promising biobased and green alternative
to polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with a market size of 1.8 million
tonne/annum. There are several routes to produce FDCA, all through
5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) conversion. The traditional thermochemical
process is highly energy intensive with a low yield. The electrocatalytic
pathway, on the other hand, is gaining increased interest for it makes
the process control more efficient, achieves a higher yield, and more
importantly can be driven by renewable electricity to lower the environmental
impact compared to the thermochemical process. This study assesses
the economic aspects and environmental impacts of the electrochemical
production of FDCA. It is found that the net present value (NPV) of
the integrated electrochemical conversion and product separation plant
is highly profitable, $72 million for 100 tonne/day production of
FDCA, under optimistic conditions. It also reveals that the HMF price
has significant impact on process economics, and the current density
has the largest scope of improvement. The life-cycle assessment (LCA)
results indicate that processes related to HMF production contribute
the most to the overall environmental impactscalling for low
impact HMF production processes, with cost reductionshowever,
the impacts of the electrochemical route are much lower in comparison
with the thermochemical route.