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Techno-economic assessment of superactivated hydrochar production by KOH impregnation compared to direct chemical activation

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Abstract

Chemically activated hydrochar, also known as superactivated hydrochar, has been gaining attentions in the field of gas and energy storage. Although raw hydrochar possesses low porosity, chemical activation using potassium hydroxide (KOH) develops substantial porosity. Literature stressed out two main pathways of KOH activation namely, (a) direct chemical activation (DCA) where solid KOH mixed with hydrochar prior to thermal activation, and (b) char impregnation (CI) where hydrochar is soaked into KOH solution prior to thermal activation. Despite voluminous literature on KOH activation for porous superactivated hydrochar production, economic perspective of producing such superactivated hydrochar in large scale that contrasts both the techniques is scarce. Therefore, a superactivated hydrochar processing plant was designed to convert 100 tonne/day wet food waste into superactivated hydrochar by DCA (case I) and CI (case II) technique. Using the process designed for both of the cases, economic evaluation was carried out to calculate total capital investment (TCI), manufacturing cost, and breakeven selling price of the superactivated hydrochar. Moreover, return on investment (ROI) was calculated to assess the preliminary economic feasibility of the two cases, where negative ROI value persisted throughout the project lifetime for case I, and ROI of 1.1 was achieved for case II at the end of its project lifetime. The breakeven selling price of superactivated hydrochar produced by CI technique was determined to be US $1.92/kg. Moreover, owing to the economic feasibility of case II, sensitivity analysis was performed for case II, which revealed moisture in food waste, total equipment cost, and food waste feedstock capacity were the influential parameters on breakeven selling price of superactivated hydrochar.

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Acknowledgements

The research is funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant

(2019-67019-2928) and National Science Foundation grant (1856058). The authors acknowledge Kyle McGaughy, Nepu Saha, Md. Tahmid Islam, and Thomas Quaid from

Biofuels lab at Florida Institute of Technology for their valuable inputs in the manuscript to make it more organized.

Funding

US Department of Agriculture for the funding support (award number: 2019–67019-31594), and the research is funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant (2019–67019-2928) and National Science Foundation grant (1856058).

National Science Foundation,1856058,M.Toufiq Reza,National Institute of Food and Agriculture,2019–67019-2928,M.Toufiq Reza

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  1. Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, 32901, USA

    Al Ibtida Sultana & M. Toufiq Reza

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AIS: Conception and design of study, acquisition of data, data analysis, drafting manuscript, and revising manuscript based on reviewer comments. MTR: Conception and design of study, funding acquisition, and manuscript revision.

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Sultana, A.I., Reza, M.T. Techno-economic assessment of superactivated hydrochar production by KOH impregnation compared to direct chemical activation. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-022-02364-w

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