Integrated Design for Furfural Manufacturing Process from Bagasse

Abstract

Conservation of natural resources and pollution reduction are the key elements of attaining sustainability. Furfural is one of the most promising sustainable platform chemicals for the future to create a variety of value-added products. Several studies have been published to optimize the performance of process design for furfural plants; however, this research developed an innovative improvement in the process integration. The process integration for both heat and mass to enhance the process efficiency are investigated in this paper, in addition to economic evaluation for the proposed plant.

Simulation results using Aspen Plus V11 demonstrate that integration of mass applied for this process will conserve 45% of the total fresh resources while enhancing profitability by saving 0.5 million USD annually. Synthesis of Heat Exchanger Networks (HENs) resulted in total utilities saving of 0.02 million USD annually. The proposed plant to produce furfural from sugarcane bagasse is commercially appealing, with a total capital investment estimated to be 29.05 million USD with net present value (NPV) of 19.29 million USD.

Overall, the profitability metrics presented in this paper for rate of return, payback period, equivalent annual annuity, and sensitivity analysis for the NPV indicate the economic viability of the plant.