The effect of economic variables on a bio‐refinery for biodiesel production using calcium oxide catalyst

This study investigates the effect of market variables on biodiesel production and considers a calcium oxide catalyzed transesterification process. A conceptual process simulation of a plant using Super Pro software was used to vary the economic scenarios and to evaluate the effects of selected variables such as prices of biodiesel, glycerol, oil, alcohol, catalyst, equipment maintenance, labor, and tax variation. Changing the values of these variables led to large effects on the overall economics of the production process. Oil purchasing cost exerted a larger influence on the economic outcome, with an approximately 73% decrease in net present value (NPV) for a 22% increase in the oil purchasing cost. Under optimum conditions the process would be profitable for oil costs below 590US$ ton−1. Varying the equipment maintenance costs produced a smaller effect, which could allow the amount of cost allocated for routine maintenance activities to be increased to sustain the productivity of the process. The study could also provide cutoff values for each variable for economic feasibility of the process at the given market scenario. © 2019 The Authors. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining published by Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.