Thermosteam: BioSTEAM's Premier Thermodynamic Engine
Yoel R. Cortés‐Peña
Abstract
Thermosteam is a thermodynamic engine capable of solving mass and energy balances, estimating mixture properties, solving thermodynamic phase equilibria, and modeling stoichiometric reactions. All chemical data in Thermosteam is imported from the chemicals library (C. Bell & contributors, 2020), an open-source compilation of data and functions for the estimation of pure component chemical and mixture properties. Thermosteam's fast and flexible platform has enabled the evaluation of conceptual and emerging biochemical production processes. The Biorefinery Simulation and Techno-Economic Analysis Modules (BioSTEAM) -capable of modeling reactors, distillation columns, heat exchangers, and other unit operations -has adopted Thermosteam as its premier thermodynamic engine Published biorefinery designs modeled in BioSTEAM implement thermodynamic property packages created with Thermosteam (BioSTEAM Development Group, 2020), including a cornstover biorefinery for the production of cellulosic ethanol, a lipid-cane biorefinery for the co-production of ethanol and biodiesel, and a wheatstraw biorefinery for the production of cellulosic ethanol (Corts-Pea et al.