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Spreadsheet software can be used to build integrated process and economic models that provide new insights into profitability.
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Techno-economic modeling (ТЕМ) connects research and development (R&D), engineering, and business. By linking process parameters to financial metrics, it can help businesses better understand the factors that affect the profitability of their technology development projects.
TEM is useful throughout the technology development lifecycle. When considering new ideas, innovators can use the technique to assess economic feasibility and potential. At the bench scale, scientists can use it to identify the process parameters that have the greatest effect on profitability. During process development, engineers can use TEM to compare the financial impact of different process conditions and configurations. ТЕМ incorporates information from all of these stages of development, and offers a basis for making objective decisions.
The individual techniques used in ТЕМ, which include process modeling, equipment sizing, and economic calculations (1-3), are already familiar to chemical engineers. This article demonstrates how to integrate and leverage them in a single, holistic model by building a techno-economic model for the fictional ABCD chemical process, which consists of four unit operations centered on a gas-phase catalytic reaction.
ТЕМ method overview
To build a techno-economic model, you must first develop a process model and calculate equipment-sizing parameters, then estimate capital and operating costs, and finally build a user interface. The process model generates a stream table, which is the foundation of the technoeconomic model. Information from the stream table is used in equipment sizing calculations to derive parameters necessary for estimating capital and operating costs. The user interface consolidates important input and results on a single sheet, facilitating model operation and sensitivity analysis. Figure 1 shows how these components are interconnected.
Software platform. The two most common platforms for TEM are spreadsheet software and process simulation software. While each has its own benefits, this article focuses on using spreadsheet software. Spreadsheet models are flexible and do not require specialized software, so they are ideal for early-stage companies and technologies. Process simulation tends to be less accessible and to require a greater degree of certainty in process parameters and configuration, so it is generally more appropriate for later-stage projects and morecomplex systems.
Model behavior. In a techno-economic...