Exploration of Biomass For the Production of Bioethanol: “A Techno-Economic Feasibility Study of Using Rice (Oryza Sativa) Husk”

The increasing energy demand and fossil fuel dependency have increased interest in the bio-ethanol production in the recent years. the use of conventional saccharine and starchy materials for ethanol production is prohibitive since it is a threat to food security. as such, rice-husk poses to be of great value, providing a means to utilize waste. in this work, we assess the economic viability of bio-ethanol production from the rice-husk waste, which entails the capital and manufacturing cost estimation, and the profitability of this process. further, cost optimization studies are carried in order to determine the material cost, government subsidy, and tax potential to maximize the overall financial benefit (i.e. roi and net profit) of the bio-ethanol production. findings from this work indicate that transforming rice-husk into bio-ethanol is not economically feasible due to the negative net profit (i.e. a loss on investment) obtained from its profitability analysis. further studies indicate that the project is susceptible to the raw material cost, subsidy, and tax rate. the result obtained from the optimization studies indicate that if the rice husk sales as low as 1.38 us$/kg, and the government introduce 25% subsidy and tax-free policy on the bio-ethanol production, the project will yield a net worth of us$ 5 million per annum, payback period of 5.5 years, and a return on investment of 16.1%. therefore, this work recommends introducing a subsidy and tax-waiver policy for bio-fuel production in order to encourage the investors and promote cleaner fuels in the emerging nations.