article · Cleaner Materials
Zeolite Y catalyst synthesis from natural raw materials is typically restricted to laboratory scale. To address the lack of commercial scaling data, a conceptual scale-up process design, techno-economic evaluation, and Monte Carlo simulation were conducted for recovering zeolite Y from Nigerian metakaolin. Using process simulation software, a facility designed for an annual capacity of 600,000 kilograms was modelled, operating at 5,000 kilograms per batch across 104 batches each year. Economic assessments evaluated capital investment, production costs, and profitability indicators. The base-case design required a total capital investment of approximately 15.93 million dollars, yielding a net present value of roughly 41.98 million dollars, a return on investment of 38.13 percent, and a payback period of 2.14 years. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses confirmed that the economic risks are negligible, indicating that commercial-scale recovery from this local clay substrate is economically viable.
Zeolite catalysts are vital industrial materials often derived via expensive routes. Demonstrating that valuable zeolite Y can be produced at scale from local metakaolin clay provides an evidence base for setting up domestic mineral processing facilities. This shifts catalyst manufacturing from small laboratory experiments toward industrial-scale chemical engineering designs that support local resource utilisation.
This work represents an applied conceptual engineering and techno-economic assessment, positioning it at the pre-feasibility stage prior to physical pilot demonstration. It provides processing metrics and cost models relevant to industrial chemical manufacturers, catalyst producers, and mining investment firms seeking to commercialise local clay deposits. Real-world adoption would require translating these software-simulated batch designs into physical pilot and demonstration plants.
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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.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.clema.2024.100233
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