Monolithic stirrer reactor for vegetable oil hydrogenation: A technical and economic assessment

BOLDRINI, D.E.; TONETTO G.

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING AND PROCESSING

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA

Año: 2018 vol. 132 p. 229 - 240

0255-2701

The monolithic stirrer reactor (MSR) which consists onmonolithic structures mounted on reactor axis as agitator blades is a noveldesign with the potential to intensify different production processes. Its mostoutstanding advantages are the absence of a filtering stage after the reactionand the high-speed mass transfer. In this paper, the technical and economicfeasibility of sunflower oil hydrogenation process under MSR (Pd/Al2O3/Al)configuration was studied considering a 100 ton day−1 productive plant, a20 ton capacity reactor and a final product with 75 iodine index. Moreover,several reaction conditions were taken into account, such as catalyst loadingand initial and final reaction temperatures, in order to determine theoperating costs. The proposed alternative process could be profitable,displaying a higher Net Present Value (NPV) than the conventional technologyone. However, slight variations in the monolithic catalyst cost performedthrough a sensitivity analysis generate a considerable decrease in NPV, thusdetermining that the implementation of the proposed alternative technologypresents a high economic risk. The achieved results in this study indicate thatfurther research is necessary in order to develop a regenerating procedure toextend the catalyst useful life, thus favouring the monolithic technologyeconomy.