Zeolite-Y-catalyst production from locally sourced Meta-kaolin: Computer-Aided scale-up process design and economic analysis with Monte-Carlo-Simulation

Abstract

Production of zeolite-Y catalyst from natural substrate has been a research trend in the scientific community. Published articles revealed that zeolite-Y recovery from locally sourced metakaolin is confined to laboratory practice. Scale-up process design and its economic feasibility for zeolite-Y catalyst recovery are rarely found in the scientific bibliography. Therefore, this study presented conceptual scale-up process design, base-case techno-economics and Monte-Carlo simulation of zeolite Y recovery from Nigerian metakaoline. ASPEN Base Case Simulation (ABCS), scale-up design and economics were accomplished using inherent design and costing algorithms in ASPEN Batch Process Developer (ABPD) V10. Process economic parameters: Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Return on Investment (ROI) and Payback Time (PBT), were modelled and optimized using Design Expert V13 software; while zeolite Unit Production Cost (UPC), Annual Production Cost (APC), Total Capital Investment (TCI) and interest/discount rate were considered as model inputs. Monte-Carlo Simulation (MCS) in Crystal Ball Oracle software was used to perform the sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. The base-case techno-economic results of process design of 600,000 kg/year zeolite production gave batch size 5000 kg/batch with 104 batches/year, batch time (4149 min), TCI ($15,930,306), APC ($147,145), NPV ($41,983,375), ROI (38.13 %) and PBT (2.14 years). The coefficient of determination (R2) of the economic models were 0.9978, 0.9989 and 0.9986 for NPV, ROI and IRR respectively. The optimum economic variables that maximized synthesis of 5000 kg/batch zeolite Y are UPC ($11.68), APC ($100,033) and TPC ($15,930,200). MCS uncertainty for NPV, IRR and ROI are negligible. Therefore, this study demonstrated that scale-up zeolite-Y production from the local substrate is economically feasible.