Techno-economic analysis of acetaldehyde production via partial oxidative dehydrogenation of ethanol

Abstract

Due to the increased attention regarding the battery electric vehicles, the demand for ethanol as a biofuel may be reduced in the future. Therefore, ethanol transformation towards acetaldehyde is conducted in this work, primarily because of the higher selling price and several advantages of acetaldehyde. Regarding the acetaldehyde preparation, acetaldehyde is produced by partial oxidative dehydrogenation of ethanol.

According to the economic analysis results, at the same price of acetaldehyde, an annual production capacity of 120,000 tons is the most profitable production size. In addition, the potential process of producing acetaldehyde from ethanol is acetaldehyde production process at 200°C since this process offers a shorter POP and a higher IRR compared to another process, namely acetaldehyde production process at 300°C. For energy consumption, the process performed at temperature of 200°C requires more thermal utilities than that of 300°C. This is because the low conversion of ethanol. For the same reason, the CO2 emissions in the case of operating at 200°C are also higher. Regarding the usage of electric utilities, the process performed at 300°C consumes the higher amount of electricity since a gas compressor is used in the process. The existence of this compressor is one of the reasons that makes this process less profitable.