Cost comparison of cellulose vs crude oil in the petrochemical industry (1 Viewer)

[jest3r]

If anyone knows of a website, or has a worksheet they can share that offers any sort of cost comparison of cellulose as a source of petrochemicals vs crude oil, that would be greatly appreciated I've searching around for a while now...still am...suprisingly it's been a bit of a dudd.

Cheers

 

[tristambrown]

thats cos it is not practical at all so no one is doing it ...

the cost of trying to make ethene from cellulose would make the polyethylene bag that your groceries are packaged in worth more than the groceries it is supposed to hold...(that is if the reactions to get there even exist) ... i know there is defrinatley no cost effective method, but cannot confirm that "no methods at all" exist ...

there are however many other renewable options being pursued (eg phb phbv and polymers derived from milk protein etc) but these are not from cellulose

 

[ossephj]

In a exam, this type of question would be worth about 5-7 marks, and not just explaining the cost, but also its viability, usefulness and its advantages and disadvantages.

Cellulose
1. It is renewable resource, cellulose is a large component of biomass
2. Glucose can be extracted from the cellulose and fermentated to make ethanol, then to ethylene by dehydration
3. Cost is much more expensive and the processing cost is expensive. Not economically viable. Also, extracting glucose from cellulose is much exhaustive process than starch. So, the cost is high, and not viable for the production of plastic bags, etc
4. The energy input (crude oil) for fermentation/dehydration can use more crude oil than in original form

Crude oil
1. Easily cracked (catalytic or thermal) into various petrol products, and cost effective
2. Easily extracted from underground
3. Cheaper source of ethylene to make plastic bags, etc
4. NON RENEWABLE RESOURCE

So, in terms of cost, Crude oil is far more economically VIABLE option to make ethylene, Chloroethyne, styrene for production of materials.

Hope this helps
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