techno-economic study of a biodiesel production from palm fatty acid distillate

8172019 Techno-Economic Study of a Biodiesel Production From Palm Fatty Acid Distillate

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Techno-Economic Study of a Biodiesel Production from Palm FattyAcid DistillateHyun Jun Cho Jin-Kuk Kim Hyun-Jea Cho and Yeong-Koo Yeo

Department of Chemical Engineering Hanyang University Haengdang-dong Sungdong-gu Seoul Republic of Korea

S Supporting Information

ABSTRACT Techno-economic analysis has been carried out for a single-step noncatalytic esteri1047297cation process which produces biodiesel from palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) A simulation model for this biodiesel production process has been developed which provided the basis for the estimation of capital expenditure and operating cost Although the process considered in this work has been observed as nonpro1047297table even at considerably large-plant capacity the net cash 1047298ow becomes surplus at thecapacity of 100 ktmiddot y minus1 Eff ects of raw material cost and biodiesel product price on the economic feasibility of the process have also been evaluated With techno-economic analysis it was found that the current biodiesel process would be economically viable with favorable changes in the economic parameters ie $50middott minus1 reduction for raw material purchase cost or $50middott minus1 increase for

biodiesel sales price

1 INTRODUCTION

Biodiesel a renewable and sustainable substitute of the dieselfuel traditionally obtained from petroleum is de1047297ned by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) asmonoalkyl esters of long-chain fatty acids derived from arenewable lipid feedstock such as vegetable oil or animal fats1

In general biodiesel fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) isefficiently produced from the transesteri1047297cation of vegetable oilor animal fats or from esteri1047297cation of fatty acids with short-chain alcohols in the presence of homogeneous or heteroge-

neous alkali- andor acid-based catalysts2

Among catalyticprocessesthe alkali-catalyzed transesteri1047297cation reaction ismuch faster than the acid-catalyzed transesteri1047297cation and ispopular in commercial production3 4 However alkali-catalyzedtransesteri1047297cation is suitable only for biodiesel production fromfeedstock containing low levels of free fatty acid (eg FFA lt 1 wt ) such as re1047297ned vegetable oils However volatile andunpredictable price changes for re1047297ned vegetable oils isregarded as a main barrier for the further development of biodiesel industry and it is not widely accepted in society as asustainable and ethical way to utilize food feedstock for theproduction of fuels

Recently heterogeneous acid catalysts have been more widely favored over homogeneous ones for adopting some low-

quality feedstock which is unre1047297ned and much cheaper than there1047297ned oil such as used cooking oils (2minus7 FFA) animal fats(5minus30) palm f att y acid distillate (PFAD 80minus95) and trapgrease (100)5minus12 However research on the direct use of asolid acid catalyst for biodiesel production has not been widely explored because of a slow reaction rate and a lack of knowledge in fundamental studies relating to reaction pathwaysof triglyceride on solid acids13

There have been only a few studies on noncatalyticesteri1047297cation andor transesteri1047297cation reactions which led tomuch simpler puri1047297cation and environmentally friendly processes14minus20 Most of these studies were conducted underpressurized conditions ie supercritical or subcritical con-

ditions of methanol However the processes mentioned aboveare not easily applicable to the actual production of biodieseldue to the signi1047297cantly high production and capital costsrequired In addition these processes are operated under severeoperating conditions such as high pressure high temperatureand high molar ratio of methanol in which uncertain safety andpotential hazard issues should be carefully managed

Therefore signi1047297cant eff orts have been made in the academicand industrial community to develop the new biodieselproduction process operating under nonsevere operatingconditions with high economic potentials Among thesedevelopments a new method for biodiesel production fromfatty acids especially PFAD has been proposed recently by Cho et al21 As PFAD is the byproduct being inevitably generated in the puri1047297cation process at the palm oil re1047297nerythe price of PFAD is much cheaper than other re1047297ned oils which are major feed stocks for most of the current biodieselplants The process for the noncatalytic single-step esteri1047297ca-tion of PFAD proposed in the work is readily applicable toactual biodiesel production and can be one of the mostcompetitive processes due to its simplicity excellent reaction yield and use of low-priced feedstock

Besides these technical aspects economic feasibility is also of great importance to access process viability A number of

studies have been conducted to evaluate economics of varioustechnologies available for biodiesel production in which a widerange of economic criteria have been employed and diff erentdesign options and feedstocks have been considered Severalstudies were conducted to analyze process economics of thealkali-catalyzed transesteri1047297cation process based on re1047297ned ordegummed vegetable oil and it was concluded that biodieselsale cost pro1047297t gained from the sale of glycerol and plant

Received June 21 2012Revised September 27 2012

Accepted November 19 2012

Article

pubsacsorgIECR

copy XXXX American Chemical Society A dxdoiorg101021ie301651b | Ind Eng Chem Res XXXX XXX XXXminusXXX



capacity are key parameters for pro1047297tability of the process andtheir impacts related to the change of these parameters on theoverall economics have been forecasted23minus25

On the other hand some investigations had been made toutilize relatively cheap waste or used cooking oil rather thanexpensive re1047297ned vegetable oil as the usage of used or wastecooking oil is limited in the alkali-transesteri1047297cation process dueto high concentration of free fatty acid in the feedstock Alsothe manufacturing cost for these processes based on used or waste cooking oil had been evaluated which was thencompared with that of the alkali-catalyzed transesteri1047297cation

process126 27

From the studies presented above biodieselproduction using heterogeneous acid catalysis seems to be themost promising technology

Other considerations were made to the development of biodiesel production from low-cost feedstock at supercritical orsubcritical conditions of methanol and its economic perform-ance was evaluated and compared with that of the alkali-transesteri1047297cation process28minus31 A few studies among themconcluded that while the supercritical process requiresconsiderable capital investment it is economically ad vanta-geous compared to the alkali-transesteri1047297cation process29minus31

Recently key economic factors of the noncatalyticesteri1047297cation of PFAD compared to other production methodshave been studied (Cho et al32) as the process considered inthe work is cost-eff ective at the 8 ktmiddot y minus1 capacity of biodieselproduct because about 25 of manufacturing cost for theprocess considered is cheaper than the supercritical process andthe transesteri1047297cation process Cho et al32 concluded that quick economic return for the current process is possible as relativepayback time is less than 033 year although the proposedprocess requires about 21 more capital investment comparedto the transesteri1047297cation process However processing capacity studied was too small to justify economic viability of theproposed process for industrial-scale applications which wasone of main drawbacks of the prev ious economic costingstudies And the study by Cho et al32 was not able to explorethe detailed economic costing with rigorous equipment sizing

for realistic judgment in con1047297dence for evaluating economicfeasibility of the developed process

Economic evaluations described so far have been carried outon the basis of process modeling with the aid of a processsimulator for example AspenPlus HYSYS or SuperProDesigner Most of the studies conducted so far were basedon a bare module concept33 but Lee31 used Icarus Process Evaluator (IPE AspenTech) which has been 1047297eld tested formore than 30 years in commercial plants and is widely used by various engineering design 1047297rms The advantage of using IPE isthat it provides the necessary speci1047297cations for detailed designestimation and economic data The detailed design allowsdetailed modi1047297cations of the process equipment which is notpossible in the Lang factor technique or the bare-modulemethod33 In addition a more accurate estimation of a totalcapital investment can be achieved by the builtin database of the 1047297eld-tested industrial standard design as well as costmodels used by project evaluators (Lee31)

In the present study an economic analysis has beenperformed for the single-step noncatal ytic esteri1047297cation methodusing PFAD proposed by Cho et al21 which is expected to beeasily commercialized as an attractive alternative process to theconventional biodiesel production due to the usage of cheapraw material The process model has been developed by using AspenPlus The proposed model provides heat and material

balances from which evaluation of the manufacturing cost wasconducted IPE has been used to obtain the detailed capitalcost In this study much eff ort was focused to identify the key economic parameters in the estimation of capital andmanufacturing costs and to understand their characteristicsand impacts on the costs of the plant when processing capacity is varied Net present value (NPV) and payback period (PBP)are evaluated at various values of raw material and product salecosts to provide economic insights into the process consideredin the present study

2 METHODOLOGY

21 Modeling To assess the technological feasibility and toobtain material and energy balances for a preliminary economic

Figure 1 AspenPlus model for biodiesel production by noncatalytic esteri1047297cation of PFAD (Cho et al21)

Industrial amp Engineering Chemistry Research Article

dxdoiorg101021ie301651b | Ind Eng Chem Res XXXX XXX XXXminusXXXB



analysis complete process modeling of the biodiesel processadopting noncatalytic esteri1047297cation of PFAD (Cho et al21) wasperformed Despite some expected diff erences between theprocess model and actual operation process simulators arecommonly used to provide reliable information on a processoperation owing to their vast component libraries compre-hensive thermodynamic packages and advanced computationalmethods In this work AspenPlus (ASPEN Tech Inc) was

used to conduct the modelingThe 1047297rst step in developing the process model was selecting

the chemical components for the process as well as relatedthermodynamic models Additionally unit operations andoperating conditions and input conditions must all be selectedand speci1047297ed AspenPlus library includes a physical property database for the following components used in the modelingmethanol water oleic acid methyl oleate and triolein PFAD was simply represented by the mixture of triolein (117) oleicacid (873) and water (10) based on the composition of PFAD in the experimental work of Cho et al21 Accordinglymethyl-oleate also available in the AspenPlus componentlibrary was taken as the product of the esteri1047297cation reaction A considerable diff erence was observed between the value of the vapor pressure of triolein from the physical property library of AspenPlus and that of triolein estimated from experimentsTherefore the equation for the calculation of vapor pressure of triolein provided by Appostolakou et al24 was adopted in thepresent study Owing to the presence of polar compounds suchas methanol and water in the process the Wilsonthermodynamicactivity model with the RedlichminusKwongequation of state was selected for use as the property packagein the modeling Since some binary interaction parameters for vaporminusliquid equilibrium were not available in the softwaredatabanks they were estimated using the UNIFAC groupmethod in AspenPlus

Figure 1 shows the 1047298owsheet for a biodiesel production

process which is composed of a noncatalytic esteri1047297

cation of PFAD fatty acid methyl ester(FAME) recovery (distillation)product puri1047297cation (distillation) and methanol recovery (distillation) using AspenPlus PFAD (FEED-P1 -P2 -P3)and methanol (FEED-M1 -M2 -M3 -M4) were used as raw materials PFAD was pumped up to overpass the reactionpressure using a pump (PUMP1) and preheated to the reactiontemperature through a heat exchanger (HEATER1) Recoveredunreacted methanol was mixed with fresh methanol atMIXER1 which was evaporated (EVAPORAT) and transferred back to the reactor The modeling of a reactor is based on thereaction condition in the experiment of Cho et al21 (290 degC085 MPa methanol to feed molar ratio 48) and thecontinuous reactor employed takes liquid PFAD (FEED-P2)

feed from the upper part of the reactor which is counter-currently in contact with vapor methanol (FEED-M4) suppliedfrom the lower part of the reactor The RadFrac simulationmodule available in AspenPlus was used to model and simulatereactive distillation by assuming 10 stages and 3 h of reactionduration for the column and using kinetic parameters for anoncatalytic esteri1047297cation of PF AD ver i1047297ed from theexperimental study of Cho et al2122 as shown in eqs 1 and 2

minus = primeC

t k C

d

dFA

f FA (1)

=prime minus

k A e E RT

f a (2)

where C FA is concentration of fatty acid (oleic acid) and thefrequency factor A and the activation energy Ea are 212minminus1 and 1774 kJmol respectively The reboiler (HEAT-ER2) is employed to provide the heat required for endothermicreaction The top vapor product from the reactor includesunreacted methanol water produced from the reaction and partof FAME component FAME is recovered from the column(REC-COL) and returned to the reactor while the light

components (ie methanol and water) are further processed inthe column to recover methanol Five theoretical stages aretaken for REC-COL (lsquoRadFracrsquo) FAME-rich bottom liquidproduct from the reactor is puri1047297ed in the distillation column(BDCOL) The lsquoRadFracrsquo column simulation module is appliedfor the rigorous simulation of MEOH-COL under atmosphericpressure and with 20 theoretical stages The re1047298ux ratio isadjusted to meet the required purity of methanol which is pureenough to be recycled to the reactor The bottom product fromMEOH-COL mainly water is discharged as wastewater Alsothe lsquoRadFracrsquo is employed to simulate the distillation column(BDCOL) which puri1047297es crude FAME bottom product fromthe reactor Due to the high boiling point of FAME the columnis operated at a very low operating pressure less than 15 kPaand 20 theoretical stages are used The re1047298ux ratio is adjustedto satisfy the speci1047297cation of biodiesel set by the EuropeanStandard EN14105 The 1047297nal product is obtained from the topdistillate stream of the column and residue (most of whichconsists of triglyceride) is discharged from the bottom of thecolumn Stream information of feed and product 1047298ows andenergy requirements of unit operations for the biodieselproduction process based on the noncatalytic esteri1047297cationare given in Tables S1 and S2 of the Supporting Information respectively

22 Economic Analysis In the present study economicanalysis refers to the evaluation of capital cost andmanufacturing cost for the process and the sensitivity analysis

on the pro1047297

tability of the process based on nondiscountedcriteria payback period (PBP) and a discounted criteria netpresent value (NPV) according to changes in feed and productprices

Basically estimation of the capital cost for the biodieselproduction by noncatalytic esteri1047297cation was performed by mapping modeling results from AspenPlus into IPE andrelating each unit in simulation to a speci1047297c type of processequipment Purchase cost of various equipment C EQ includingtowers heat exchangers vessels pumps etc was determinedfrom the default method of IPE which allows sizing and costingof unit operations No prototype for the counter-current typereactor is available within IPE and therefore the cost of acounter-current reactor was estimated from the column with

bubble cap tray The size of the column was taken as beingequivalent to 3-h residence time Table S3 of the SupportingInformation shows size and speci1047297cation for the majorequipment including towers and heat exchangers when theprocessing capacity is 120 ktmiddot y minus1 of biodiesel product It should be noted that unit height per theoretical stage of column isdiff erent according to the type of column For exampleMEOHCOL is valve tray type while BDCOL is packing typeTherefore the height of BDCOL and MEOHCOL is diff erentalthough the numbers of theoretical stages for both columns arethe same C BM cost for bulk materials including piping steelstructure electrical instrumentation insulation etc and C ID

indirect cost for engineering and construction indirect cost forengineering and construction were also estimated from IPE


dxdoiorg101021ie301651b | Ind Eng Chem Res XXXX XXX XXXminusXXXC



IPE does not have a functionality to estimate C AUX costincurred for site development auxiliary buildings and off -sitesand utilities including storage tanks utility systems centralenvironmental control facilities and 1047297re protecting systems It isdifficult to perform accurate costing for C AUX as it is strongly dependent on the location and characteristics of the plant Inthis study C AUX is taken as 50 of C IBL

33 which is overall costrequired for the plant within inside battery limit and is given by

sum of C EQ C BM and C ID Working capital cost C WC is usually a fraction of the 1047297 xed capital cost C FC(=C IBL + C AUX ) and 15of C FC is taken by previous works25 2630 34

In the present work the total manufacturing cost wasestimated from the heat and mass balances prices of raw material chemicals and utilities as well as operating labor cost As mentioned earlier by some researchers1 23minus26 30 totalmanufacturing cost and pro1047297t are heavily in1047298uenced by raw material cost and product cost To re1047298ect actual market trend inthis study prices for raw material and product are averaged overthe past 1047297 ve years between 2007 and 2011 (Table S4 of theSupporting Information) to be used in the economic analysisOther prices for chemicals and utilities used in the process arealso shown in Table S4 Cost of operating labor C

OL

wasestimated from the correlation by Alk ha yat and Gerrard35 andthe method described in Turton et al33 Depreciation cost wascalculated using a straight-line method over 95 years with nosalvage value33 All the other individual items of manufacturingcost were estimated by the method presented in Turton et al33

based on 1047297 xed capital cost C FC and cost of operating laborC OL the federal tax rate33 was applied to compute lsquoPro1047297t afterTax rsquo P AT

To assess the pro1047297tability of the process in the present studytwo economic indicators payback period (PBP) and netpresent value (NPV) were calculated from the total capital costand the total manufacturing cost Payback period PBP isde1047297ned as eq 3

=+

C

PBP

fixed capital cost ( )

profit after tax ( ) depreciation (C )FC

AT DP (3)

Discount rate and project life for evaluation of NPV used inthis work is 10 and 10 years respectively

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Overall capital cost of the plant with each cost item is tabulatedin Table 1 when plant capacity is varied for the biodieselproduction process by noncatalytic esteri1047297cation The ratio of direct cost C D representing the purchasing cost of equipmentand bulk materials to total 1047297 xed capital cost increases withplant capacity while the ratio of indirect cost C ID to total 1047297 xed

capital cost decreases with plant capacity This pattern agrees well with typical trends observed in chemical industries Theseresults are plotted in Figure 2 which shows the relative

contribution of each cost item to the overall capital cost Thedirect cost becomes dominant in the overall capital cost when

the plant capacity increases For example when the capacity is120 ktmiddot y minus1 direct cost contributes more than 40 of capitalcost

Table 2 shows details of manufacturing cost and values of PBP and NPV for diff erent plant capacities for the biodieselproduction process by noncatalytic esteri1047297cation Changes of the ratio of individual cost item with plant capacity are shownin Figure 3 Although the noncatalytic esteri1047297cation processconsidered in this work is based on the utilization of cheap raw material the cost of which is 20minus30 cheaper than feedstock used in other conventional processes the dominant cost item inthe manufacturing cost is related to the purchase of PFAD which keeps increasing and reaches around 66 of overallmanufacturing cost With prices of raw materials ($608middott minus1) and

product ($1005middott minus1

) chosen for this s tudy i t i s noteconomically viable to produce biodiesel This strongly indicates that considerable governmental support (such as tax bene1047297ts) is needed for the commercial implementation of theproposed process Meanwhile the eff ect of ldquoeconomy of scalerdquo

can be observed from Table 2 and Figure 3 As the plantcapacity increases the de1047297cit decreases and better cash 1047298ow isachieved Negative cash 1047298ow switches to surplus at more than100 ktmiddot y minus1 capacity

It should be noted that the selling price of biodiesel is notsteady over time because the price of biodiesel in the market issigni1047297cantly dependent on that of petro-diesel produced frompetroleum-based re1047297neries and the price of raw material for the biodiesel production PFAD in the current work is highly

Table 1 Total Capital Cost for the Biodiesel Process Considered in the Present Study

plant capacity (ktmiddot y minus1)

(MM$) 20 40 60 80 100 120

equipment CEQ 164 266 347 437 557 635

bulk material C BM 196 222 247 240 255 268

direct cost C D= C EQ + C BM 360 488 594 677 812 903

indirect cost C ID 442 497 536 533 565 590

IBL cost C IBL = C D + C ID 802 984 1129 1210 1378 1493auxiliary facility cost C AUX = 05C IBL 401 492 565 605 689 747

1047297 xed capital cost C FC = C IBL + C AUX 1203 1477 1694 1815 2066 2240

working capital cost C WC = 015C FC 180 221 254 272 310 336

total capital cost C TC = C FC + C WC 1383 1698 1948 2087 2376 2576

Figure 2 Ratios of equipment cost bulk material cost direct cost andindirect cost to total 1047297 xed capital cost


dxdoiorg101021ie301651b | Ind Eng Chem Res XXXX XXX XXXminusXXXD



1047298uctuating according to the productivity of crop and demand inthe market Care must be taken to interpret the outcome of economic analysis carried out in this work as uncertainties inthe prices of raw material and biodiesel product de1047297nitely aff ectthe calculation of manufacturing cost and pro1047297t By taking intoaccount the 1047298uctuating nature of prices of palm biodiesel PBDand PFAD over the past 1047297 ve years (2007minus2011) pro1047297t beforetax P BT was calculated for the biodiesel process with a capacity of 120 ktmiddot y minus1 As shown in Figure 4 surplus occurred for the years 2008 and 2011 while de1047297cits were observed for the years2007 2009 and 2010 Especially the trend of the change in

pro1047297t before tax P BT is similar to that of price diff erence between PBD and PFAD which implies that this pricediff erence is the dominant factor for the pro1047297tability of theprocess

On the other hand it has been analyzed how the prices of raw material and biodiesel product in1047298uence overall economicsof the processes considered in this work Two factors price of PFAD and biodiesel product with 1047297 ve diff erent levels per eachfactor were investigated in the sensitivity analysis for theprocess of 120 ktmiddot y minus1 capacity as given in Table 3 The results

Table 2 Estimated Total Manufacturing Cost and Pro1047297tability


cost items (MM$) 20 40 60 80 100 120

Direct Cost

Raw Material

PFAD 1333 2667 4000 5333 6667 8000

methanol 095 189 284 378 473 567

Utility and Waste treatmentsteam and fuel 067 134 200 267 334 401

electricity 00012 00025 00037 00050 00062 00074

cooling water 008 016 024 031 039 047

waste disposal 010 019 029 039 048 058

Labor

oprating labor C OL 074 074 074 074 074 074

supervisory and clerical labor 018C OL 013 013 013 013 013 013

Miscellaneous

maintenance and repair 006C FC 072 089 102 109 124 134

operating supplies 0009C FC 011 013 015 016 019 020

lab charges 015C OL 011 011 011 011 011 011

patents and royalties 003C MF 073 132 190 247 305 363

Fixed Cost

depreciation C DP 127 155 178 191 218 236local taxes and insurance 0032C FC 038 047 054 058 066 072

plant overhead 0708C OL + 0036C FC 096 106 113 118 127 133

General Expenses

admin costs 0177C OL + 0009C FC 024 026 028 029 032 033

dist and selling cost 011C MF 269 483 696 906 1120 1331

res and dev 005C MF 122 220 316 412 509 605

Total Manufacturing Cost C MF 2443 4395 6329 8234 10179 12100

Revenue 2010 4020 6030 8040 10050 12060

Pro1047297t before Tax P BT minus433 minus375 minus299 minus194 minus129 minus040

income tax 000 000 000 000 000 000

Pro1047297t after Tax P AT minus433 minus375 minus299 minus194 minus129 minus040

After-Tax Cash Flow CF AT = P AT + C DP minus306 minus219 minus121 minus003 089 196

PBP (payback period y) C FC CF AT minus minus minus minus 2329 1142

NPV (net present value) minus

3264 minus

3045 minus

2690 minus

2104 minus

1831 minus

1371

Figure 3 Ratios of direct cost 1047297 xed cost general expenses andfeedstock cost to total manufacturing cost

Figure 4 Yearly changes in the price diff erence of PFAD and PBD andtheir impact on the pro1047297tability of the biodiesel process for 120 ktmiddot y minus1

plant


dxdoiorg101021ie301651b | Ind Eng Chem Res XXXX XXX XXXminusXXXE



of the sensitivity analysis are shown in Figures 5 and 6 whichexhibit the changes of payback period PBP and net present

value NPV respectively according to the changes of twofactors With $50middott minus1 reduction for the price of PFAD X 1 or$50middott minus1 increase for the price of palm biodiesel X 2 payback period is signi1047297cantly improved from more than 11 years to less

than 2 years The same trend is observed in Figure 6 in whichnet cash 1047298ow becomes positive with $50middott minus1 of favorable changein X 1 or X 2 Meanwhile the degree of negative eff ect caused by an unfavorable change of X 1 or X 2 is more severe than that of positive eff ect caused by a favorable change of X 1 or X 2 whichcan be seen by comparing the slope of NPV pro1047297les in Figure 6(|aprime| gt |a| bprime gt b)

4 CONCLUSION

Techno-economic evaluation as well as sensitivity analysis of key economic parameters for the single-step noncatalyticesteri1047297cation method proposed by Cho et al21 was performedThe process considered in this work showed promisingpotential for further development and commercialization as

the process utilizes PFAD which is around 20minus30 cheaperthan re1047297ned vegetable oil used in conventional biodieselproduction process The detailed economic costing andevaluation have been made from mass and energy balancesobtained from modeling and simulation of the process1047298owsheet For the capital cost of the present process theportion of direct cost increases according to the plant capacity as in the case of typical chemical processes The purchasing costfor the raw material PFAD is the largest contributor tomanufacturing cost and it was found that about 66 of the

manufacturing cost consists of the raw material cost when theplant capacity is 120 ktmiddot y minus1 The eff ect of ldquoeconomy of scalerdquo forthe proposed process has been observed and positive net cash1047298ow was obtained for a capacity larger than 100 kt middot y minus1

Sensitivity of the two most in1047298uential factors on thepro1047297tability of the process namely the purchase cost of PFAD and the selling price of palm biodiesel has beenexamined and a small favorable change of either of these twofactors for example $50middott minus1 increase in the palm biodieselselling price or $50middott minus1 decrease in PFAD price enables turningthe pro1047297t from de1047297cit to surplus This result supports thesigni1047297cance of the competitiveness of the proposed process inthe market as the production of biodiesel from PFAD iseconomically viable without relying on governmental support

or tax bene1047297ts even under the current market trend of considerable increases in the price of raw material Also if cheaper feed than PFAD could be utilized in the proposedprocess it is expected that its pro1047297tability could be furtherimproved and industrial uptake could be signi1047297cantly increased

ASSOCIATED CONTENT

S Supporting InformationTables on feed and product stream information for thenoncatalytic esteri1047297cation process energy requirements foreach unit process summary of size and speci1047297cation for majorequipment and prices of raw materials chemicals utilities andproducts This material is available free of charge via theInternet at httppubsacsorg

Table 3 Description of Factors in Sensitivity Analysis

level

factor descr iption minus100 minus50 0 50 100

X 1 price of PFAD ($t ) 508 558 608 658 708

X 2 palm biodiesel price($t )

905 955 1005 1055 1105

Figure 5 Impact of feedstock price (a) and product price (b) on thepayback period (PBP) for 120 ktmiddot y minus1 plant

Figure 6 Impact of feedstock price (a) and product price (b) on the

net present value (NPV) for 120 ktmiddot y minus1 plant


dxdoiorg101021ie301651b | Ind Eng Chem Res XXXX XXX XXXminusXXXF



AUTHOR INFORMATION

Corresponding Author

Telephone +82 2 2220 0488 Fax +82 2 2220 4007 E-mail ykyeohanyangackr

Notes

The authors declare no competing 1047297nancial interest

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThis work was supported by Korea Research Foundation Grantfunded by the Korean Government (2010-0007152) and inpart by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy Republic of Korea as a part of the research project titled ldquoConstitution of Energy Network Using District Heating Energy rdquo (Project No2007-E-ID25-P-02-0-000) We thank them for their support

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(5) Kiss A A Omota F A Dimian C Rothenberg G TheHeterogeneous Advantage Biodiesel by Catalytic Reactive DistillationTop Catal 2006 40 141

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Eng J 2006 116 61(7) Lopez D E Goodwin J G Jr Bruce D A Lotero E

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(8) Lopez D E Goodwin J G Jr Bruce D A Furuta SEsterification and Transesterification Using Modified-Zirconia Cata-lysts Appl Catal A 2008 339 76

(9) Kawashima A Matsubara K Honda K Acceleration of Catalytic of Calcium Oxide for Biodiesel Production BioresourTechnol 2009 100 696

(10) Marchetti J M Miguel V U Errazu A F HeterogeneousEsterification of Oil with High Amounts of Free Fatty Acids Fuel2007 86 906

(11) Wang Y Ou S Liu P Zhang Z Preparation of Biodieselfrom Waste Cooking Oil via Two-Step Catalyzed Process EnergyConvers Manage 2007 48 184

(12) Petchmala A Laosiripojana N Jongsomjit B Goto MPanpranot J Mekasuwandumrong O Shotipruk A Transester-

ification of Palm Oil and Esterification of Palm Fatty Acid in Near- andSuper-Critical Methanol with SO4minusZrO2 Catalysts Fuel 2010 89 2387

(13) Lam M K Lee K T Mohamed A R HomogeneousHeterogeneous and Enzymatic Catalysis for Transesterification of High Free Fatty Acid Oil (Waste Cooking Oil) to Biodiesel A Review

Biotechnol Adv 2010 28 (4) 500(14) Diasakou M Louloudi A Papayannakos N Kinetics of the

Non-Catalytic Transesterification of Soybean Oil Fuel 1998 77 1297(15) Kusdiana D Saka S Kinetics of Transesterification in

Rapeseed Oil to Biodiesel Fuel at Treated in Supercritical MethanolFuel 2001 80 693

(16) Yujaroen D Goto M Sasaki M Shotipruk A Esterificationof Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) in Supercritical Methanol Effectof Hydrolysis on Reaction Activity Fuel 2009 88 2011

(17) Warabi Y Kusdiana D Saka S Reactivity of Triglycerides andFatty Acids of Rapeseed Oil in Supercritical Alcohols BioresourTechnol 2004 91 (3) 283

(18) Kusdiana D Saka S Effects of Water on Biodiesel FuelProduction by Supercritical Methanol Treatment Bioresour Technol2004 91 (3) 289

(19) Imahara H Minami E Hari S Saka S Thermal Stability of Biodiesel in Supercritical Methanol Fuel 2008 87 (1) 1

(20) He H Wang T Zhu S Continuous Production of Biodiesel

Fuel from Vegetable Oil Using Supercritical Methanol Process Fuel2007 86 (3) 442

(21) Cho H J Kim S H Hong S W Yeo Y K A Single StepNon-Catalytic Esterification of Palm Fatty Acid Distillate Fuel 2012 93 373

(22) Hong S W Cho H J Kim S H Yeo Y K Modeling of theNon-Catalytic Semi-Batch Esterification of Palm Fatty Acid Distillate(PFAD) Korean J Chem Eng 2012 29 (1) 18

(23) Haas M J McAloon A J Yee W C Foglia T A A ProcessModel to Estimate Biodiesel Production Costs Bioresour Technol2006 97 (4) 671

(24) Apostolakou A A Kookos I K Marazioti C K Angelo poul os C Techno- Economic Analys is of a Bio dieselProduction Process from Vegetable Oils Fuel Process Technol 2009 90 1023

(25) You Y D Shie J L Chang C Y Huang S H Pai C Y Yu Y H Chang C H Economic Cost Analysis of Biodiesel ProductionCase in Soybean Oil Energy Fuels 2008 22 (1) 182

(26) Zhang Y Dube M A McLean D D Kates M BiodieselProduction from Waste Cooking Oil 2 Economic Assessment andSensitivity Analysis Bioresour Technol 2003 90 229

(27) West A H Posarac D Ellis N Assessment of Four BiodieselProduction Processes Using HYSYSPlant Bioresour Technol 2008 99 6587

(28) Marchetti J M Errazu A F Technoeconomic Study of Supercritical Biodiesel Production Plant Energy Convers Manage2008 49 2160

(29) van Kasteren J M N Nisworo A P A Process Model toEstimate the Cost of Industrial Scale Biodiesel Production from WasteCooking Oil by Supercritical Transesterification Resour Conserv

Recycl 2007 50 442(30) Lim Y Lee H Lee Y Han C Design and Economic Analysis of the Process for Biodiesel Fuel Production fromTransesterificated Rapeseed Oil Using Supercritical Methanol Ind

Eng Chem Res 2009 48 5370(31) Lee S J Process Simulation Economic Analysis and Synthesis

of Biodiesel from Waste Vegetable Oil Using Supercritical MethanolMasterrsquos Thesis The University of British Columbia Vancouver BCCanada 2010

(32) Cho H J Kim J K Hong S W Yeo Y K Development of aNovel Process for Biodiesel Production from Palm Fatty AcidDistillate (PFAD) Fuel Process Technol 2012 104 271

(33) Turton R Richard C B Whiting W B Shaeiwitz J A Analysis Synthesis and Design of Chemical Processes Pearson EducationInc Boston MA 2009

(34) Ulrich G D A Guide to Chemical Engineering Process Design and Economics John Wiley and Sons New York 1984(35) Alkhayat W A Gerrard A M Estimating Manning Levels for

Process Plants AACE Trans 1984 I-21minusI-24


dxdoiorg101021ie301651b | Ind Eng Chem Res XXXX XXX XXXminusXXXG



capacity are key parameters for pro1047297tability of the process andtheir impacts related to the change of these parameters on theoverall economics have been forecasted23minus25

On the other hand some investigations had been made toutilize relatively cheap waste or used cooking oil rather thanexpensive re1047297ned vegetable oil as the usage of used or wastecooking oil is limited in the alkali-transesteri1047297cation process dueto high concentration of free fatty acid in the feedstock Alsothe manufacturing cost for these processes based on used or waste cooking oil had been evaluated which was thencompared with that of the alkali-catalyzed transesteri1047297cation

process126 27

From the studies presented above biodieselproduction using heterogeneous acid catalysis seems to be themost promising technology

Other considerations were made to the development of biodiesel production from low-cost feedstock at supercritical orsubcritical conditions of methanol and its economic perform-ance was evaluated and compared with that of the alkali-transesteri1047297cation process28minus31 A few studies among themconcluded that while the supercritical process requiresconsiderable capital investment it is economically ad vanta-geous compared to the alkali-transesteri1047297cation process29minus31

Recently key economic factors of the noncatalyticesteri1047297cation of PFAD compared to other production methodshave been studied (Cho et al32) as the process considered inthe work is cost-eff ective at the 8 ktmiddot y minus1 capacity of biodieselproduct because about 25 of manufacturing cost for theprocess considered is cheaper than the supercritical process andthe transesteri1047297cation process Cho et al32 concluded that quick economic return for the current process is possible as relativepayback time is less than 033 year although the proposedprocess requires about 21 more capital investment comparedto the transesteri1047297cation process However processing capacity studied was too small to justify economic viability of theproposed process for industrial-scale applications which wasone of main drawbacks of the prev ious economic costingstudies And the study by Cho et al32 was not able to explorethe detailed economic costing with rigorous equipment sizing

for realistic judgment in con1047297dence for evaluating economicfeasibility of the developed process

Economic evaluations described so far have been carried outon the basis of process modeling with the aid of a processsimulator for example AspenPlus HYSYS or SuperProDesigner Most of the studies conducted so far were basedon a bare module concept33 but Lee31 used Icarus Process Evaluator (IPE AspenTech) which has been 1047297eld tested formore than 30 years in commercial plants and is widely used by various engineering design 1047297rms The advantage of using IPE isthat it provides the necessary speci1047297cations for detailed designestimation and economic data The detailed design allowsdetailed modi1047297cations of the process equipment which is notpossible in the Lang factor technique or the bare-modulemethod33 In addition a more accurate estimation of a totalcapital investment can be achieved by the builtin database of the 1047297eld-tested industrial standard design as well as costmodels used by project evaluators (Lee31)

In the present study an economic analysis has beenperformed for the single-step noncatal ytic esteri1047297cation methodusing PFAD proposed by Cho et al21 which is expected to beeasily commercialized as an attractive alternative process to theconventional biodiesel production due to the usage of cheapraw material The process model has been developed by using AspenPlus The proposed model provides heat and material

balances from which evaluation of the manufacturing cost wasconducted IPE has been used to obtain the detailed capitalcost In this study much eff ort was focused to identify the key economic parameters in the estimation of capital andmanufacturing costs and to understand their characteristicsand impacts on the costs of the plant when processing capacity is varied Net present value (NPV) and payback period (PBP)are evaluated at various values of raw material and product salecosts to provide economic insights into the process consideredin the present study

2 METHODOLOGY

21 Modeling To assess the technological feasibility and toobtain material and energy balances for a preliminary economic

Figure 1 AspenPlus model for biodiesel production by noncatalytic esteri1047297cation of PFAD (Cho et al21)


dxdoiorg101021ie301651b | Ind Eng Chem Res XXXX XXX XXXminusXXXB










minus = primeC

t k C

d

dFA

f FA (1)

=prime minus

k A e E RT

f a (2)




on the pro1047297













OL




=+

C

PBP



AT DP (3)














(MM$) 20 40 60 80 100 120

equipment CEQ 164 266 347 437 557 635


















cost items (MM$) 20 40 60 80 100 120

Direct Cost

Raw Material

PFAD 1333 2667 4000 5333 6667 8000

methanol 095 189 284 378 473 567


electricity 00012 00025 00037 00050 00062 00074

cooling water 008 016 024 031 039 047

waste disposal 010 019 029 039 048 058

Labor



Miscellaneous



lab charges 015C OL 011 011 011 011 011 011


Fixed Cost



General Expenses



res and dev 005C MF 122 220 316 412 509 605


Revenue 2010 4020 6030 8040 10050 12060


income tax 000 000 000 000 000 000





3264 minus

3045 minus

2690 minus

2104 minus

1831 minus

1371



plant








4 CONCLUSION






ASSOCIATED CONTENT



level


X 1 price of PFAD ($t ) 508 558 608 658 708


905 955 1005 1055 1105








AUTHOR INFORMATION



Notes



REFERENCES





















































minus = primeC

t k C

d

dFA

f FA (1)

=prime minus

k A e E RT

f a (2)




on the pro1047297













OL




=+

C

PBP



AT DP (3)














(MM$) 20 40 60 80 100 120

equipment CEQ 164 266 347 437 557 635


















cost items (MM$) 20 40 60 80 100 120

Direct Cost

Raw Material

PFAD 1333 2667 4000 5333 6667 8000

methanol 095 189 284 378 473 567


electricity 00012 00025 00037 00050 00062 00074

cooling water 008 016 024 031 039 047

waste disposal 010 019 029 039 048 058

Labor



Miscellaneous



lab charges 015C OL 011 011 011 011 011 011


Fixed Cost



General Expenses



res and dev 005C MF 122 220 316 412 509 605


Revenue 2010 4020 6030 8040 10050 12060


income tax 000 000 000 000 000 000





3264 minus

3045 minus

2690 minus

2104 minus

1831 minus

1371



plant








4 CONCLUSION






ASSOCIATED CONTENT



level


X 1 price of PFAD ($t ) 508 558 608 658 708


905 955 1005 1055 1105








AUTHOR INFORMATION



Notes



REFERENCES


















































OL




=+

C

PBP



AT DP (3)














(MM$) 20 40 60 80 100 120

equipment CEQ 164 266 347 437 557 635


















cost items (MM$) 20 40 60 80 100 120

Direct Cost

Raw Material

PFAD 1333 2667 4000 5333 6667 8000

methanol 095 189 284 378 473 567


electricity 00012 00025 00037 00050 00062 00074

cooling water 008 016 024 031 039 047

waste disposal 010 019 029 039 048 058

Labor



Miscellaneous



lab charges 015C OL 011 011 011 011 011 011


Fixed Cost



General Expenses



res and dev 005C MF 122 220 316 412 509 605


Revenue 2010 4020 6030 8040 10050 12060


income tax 000 000 000 000 000 000





3264 minus

3045 minus

2690 minus

2104 minus

1831 minus

1371



plant








4 CONCLUSION






ASSOCIATED CONTENT



level


X 1 price of PFAD ($t ) 508 558 608 658 708


905 955 1005 1055 1105








AUTHOR INFORMATION



Notes



REFERENCES



















































cost items (MM$) 20 40 60 80 100 120

Direct Cost

Raw Material

PFAD 1333 2667 4000 5333 6667 8000

methanol 095 189 284 378 473 567


electricity 00012 00025 00037 00050 00062 00074

cooling water 008 016 024 031 039 047

waste disposal 010 019 029 039 048 058

Labor



Miscellaneous



lab charges 015C OL 011 011 011 011 011 011


Fixed Cost



General Expenses



res and dev 005C MF 122 220 316 412 509 605


Revenue 2010 4020 6030 8040 10050 12060


income tax 000 000 000 000 000 000





3264 minus

3045 minus

2690 minus

2104 minus

1831 minus

1371



plant








4 CONCLUSION






ASSOCIATED CONTENT



level


X 1 price of PFAD ($t ) 508 558 608 658 708


905 955 1005 1055 1105








AUTHOR INFORMATION



Notes



REFERENCES

















































4 CONCLUSION






ASSOCIATED CONTENT



level


X 1 price of PFAD ($t ) 508 558 608 658 708


905 955 1005 1055 1105








AUTHOR INFORMATION



Notes



REFERENCES














































AUTHOR INFORMATION



Notes



REFERENCES












































techno-economic study of a biodiesel production from palm fatty acid distillate

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