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

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.