Industrial production of green diesel in Brazil: Process simulation and economic perspectives

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to apply process simulation to infer the technical and economic bottlenecks of the industrial production of green diesel, taking as a context the Brazilian market at the end of 2021/beginning of 2022. In the considered economic scenario, a stand-alone green diesel production process does not seem economically viable in Brazil, as the fuel would need to cost 30 % more than the European market price and twice the conventional diesel price (US$ 2.08/L) to compensate for the investment made. However, significant price reductions - 10 %–15 % in the considered scenarios (to US$ 1.76–1.87/L) - can be achieved with capital and energy savings due to the availability of a conventional refinery hydrotreatment unit, and eventual parity with market prices can be achieved with soybean oil price reductions (of 22–40 %, completely possible in the Brazilian market). This analysis shows that green diesel may be absolutely possible depending on the economic context and that there is room for its gradual incorporation in petroleum diesel. This is the first research article to demonstrate it though process simulation and to economically compare the investment on a stand-alone process with a refinery retrofit.