A major difficulty in operating biorefinery processes is the large feedstock variability. A systematic multivariate analysis (sMVA) strategy for improved process understanding of industrial biorefinery processes is proposed to support identification of effects of feedstock and process variability on product quality. This sMVA strategy comprises nine steps categorized in data set organization, exploratory analysis, and regression. Different MVA techniques are used, such as principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares regression (PLS). As a case study, two main operations in fatty acid production are investigated: oil hydrolysis and fatty acid distillation. Key feedstock properties and process parameters affecting the product properties were identified for both operations. For fatty acid production, product quality largely depends on the type of fat or oil used, such as canola or palm oil, due to the large difference in composition and quality between the oil types. However, if a single oil type is used, the variability in product quality does not always critically depend on the variability in feedstock properties. For both operations, flow rate variations, mainly caused by planning issues, were identified as a main cause. In oil hydrolysis, the feed flow rate influences the residence time and thereby directly influences the hydrolysis and side reactions. In fatty acid distillation, a better control is required of the middle reflux ratio in relation to this changing flow rate. The case study showed that applying our proposed sMVA strategy improves the understanding of a biorefinery process by identifying critical sources of variability, which allows more targeted decisions for optimization and control.

中文翻译：

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工业生物精炼过程的多元分析：通过脂肪酸生产案例研究提高对过程理解的策略

操作生物精炼工艺的主要困难是较大的原料可变性。提出了一种系统的多元分析（sMVA）策略，以提高对工业生物精炼过程的过程理解，以支持确定原料的影响和过程变异性对产品质量的影响。该sMVA策略包括九个步骤，分为数据集组织，探索性分析和回归。使用了不同的MVA技术，例如主成分分析（PCA）和偏最小二乘回归（PLS）。作为案例研究，研究了脂肪酸生产中的两个主要操作：油水解和脂肪酸蒸馏。确定了两种操作的关键原料性能和影响产品性能的工艺参数。为了生产脂肪酸，产品质量在很大程度上取决于所用脂肪或油的类型，例如低芥酸菜子油或棕榈油，这是由于两种油的成分和质量差异很大。但是，如果使用单一类型的油，则产品质量的可变性并不总是严格取决于原料性能的可变性。对于这两种操作，主要由计划问题引起的流量变化被确定为主要原因。在油水解中，进料流速影响停留时间，从而直接影响水解和副反应。在脂肪酸蒸馏中，需要相对于该变化的流速更好地控制中间回流比。案例研究表明，应用我们提出的sMVA策略可以通过识别关键的可变性来源来提高对生物炼制过程的了解，