Paper Title
Economic Analysis of Fuel Production From Oligomerization – Comparison Between Continuous Flow Fixed Bed and Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor
Abstract
In Thailand, efficiency in energy use has increased and there is still a need for further use of alternative fuels
which can be produced from oligomerization of alkene. This study discusses the economic analysis of fuel productions from
hexene oligomerization; the plants were designed to produce gasoline (C5-onward). Two different oligomerization processes
of which two types of reactors were utilized, including hexene in a continuous flow fixed-bed reactor (CFBR) compared
with hexene in a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) are carried out in 5,000 kg reactor. The results indicate that about
2,693,000 kg/year hexene, which are fed in CFBR and CSTR, can produce 2,340,000 and 2,600,000 kg/year of gasoline,
respectively. Economic analysis indicates that two different annual operating costs for the plants are ฿137 million in HCFBR
and ฿155 million in H-CSTR. The plants, despite upfront capital investments were estimated to be profitable business
ventures. The proposed productions were compared using economic indexes such as the net present value (NPV), the
internal rate of return (IRR) and the payback period (PBP) based on the proposed productions. The findings indicated that a
H-CSTR, which is the most profitable, shows PBP of 1.9 months with highest positive NPV of 416 million baht and IRR of
71.8%, assuming the plants operate for 20 years at a 7% annual discount rate.
Keywords- Oligomerization, Economic analysis, hexene