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Publication Oxy Fuel for Clean Energy Generation(2018-04-20) Hally, Patrick J; Muqeem, Najib M; Richter, Colin B; Schanstra, Timothy RThis process explores several concentrations of oxygen-enriched air streams (oxy fuel) in combination with natural gas to generate steam for a steam turbine power plant with 30 MW capacity. The proposed location for this plant is the gulf coast of the United States. The oxy fuel concentrations tested were 36 mol. %, 53 mol. %, and 95 mol. %. Nitrogen removed from air would be sold as well as the 30 MW of electricity. The three oxygen purities were not profitable for the most realistic prices of electricity, nitrogen, and natural gas. However, the scenarios were all profitable with prices of nitrogen above $0.015/lb. Additionally, the profitability could be improved with higher electricity prices or better thermal efficiency. A key takeaway is that the level of oxygen purity did not have a major effect on profitability for a given nitrogen price.Publication Direct Route to Phenol from Benzene(2017-04-18) Daowdat, Bryan; Hoeltzel, Gerard D.; Tannenbaum, RobertPhenol production, expected to exceed 13MM metric tons in 2017, is a significant global industry with many flaws in its current manufacturing method. The Hock process essentially converts high value propylene to low value acetone. The proposed process design, detailed in this report, provides an alternative reaction pathway that utilizes a direct synthesis from benzene, as developed at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in New Delhi, India. The endorsed proposal is in accordance with US Patent 8,772,552 B2, that describes the production of phenol via vapor phase oxidation of benzene over a copper chromium oxide catalyst. Environmental protection and worker safety are paramount concerns due to the hazardous nature of phenol and benzene. The inclusion of a ventilation system with flare hoods keeps the concentration of hazardous materials within OSHA guidelines. The design uses air to oxidize benzene within four separate packed-bed reactors with inter-stage coolers. Downstream separation removes non-condensable species, recycles up to 98% of the unreacted benzene, and purifies phenol to design specifications. The plant’s capacity is 500MM lb/operating-year of phenol and will be located on the U.S. Gulf Coast as part of an industrial complex. The final product is 99.83% phenol by mass, and contains an aldehyde byproduct as the principal impurity. The design requires an initial investment of $83.6MM, yields a fifteen-year net present value (NPV) of $90M, and has an estimated investor’s rate of return (IRR) of 29.2%. The proposed project is forecasted to break-even in Q1 of 2025 immediately following the second year of maximum production capacity. The design is recommended based on project specifications and marketing team projections, though investors should exercise caution with regards to the effect of realistic market data on proposal sensitivities.Publication Low-Cost, Commercial Scale Production of Sofosbuvir(2017-04-18) Solomon, Joseph; Hsu, Jake; Tong, Cynthia; Bliss, RyanRecent advances in antiviral therapeutics have produced highly effective small molecule drugs to treat Hepatitis C, a deadly infection of the liver. Sofosbuvir, a hepatitis C drug developed by Gilead Sciences, is a breakthrough treatment due to its low side effects and high cure rate. However, the cost of treatment is extraordinarily high, priced at $84,000 per treatment in the US. In response to backlash regarding the cost barriers in developing countries, Gilead has reached licensing agreements with generic pharmaceutical companies to produce the drug for markets in low-income countries such as India, Kenya, and Cuba among others. The report describes a cost-effective, commercial scale process design for the production of sofosbuvir. The proposed production facility is designed to deliver 350,000 kg/year of the active pharmaceutical ingredient, enough to treat 10 million patients per year. The production will be completed over one hundred batches, requiring operation of 120 days/year. Assuming an 11-year period of operation, detailed economic analysis suggests that this is a profitable venture with an IRR of 67.7% and a NPV of $1.2 billion USD.Publication Food Waste to Bio-Products(2017-04-18) Handen, Elizabeth; Diaz Padilla, Mauricio; Rears, Hannah; Rodgers, LyleThe goal of this project was to design and evaluate a project for the collection and processing of food waste and spent oil in Philadelphia. The project was designed to handle 5% of the total commercial waste generated in Philadelphia. This amounted to approximately 9,700 tons/year of food waste and 73,000 gallons/year of spent oil. The process was designed to utilize a BIOFerm™ Dry Fermentation Digestion System. Following the digestion, the biogas produced is passed through a Caterpillar CG132-12 Generator Set, producing electricity to be sold back to the local grid. The digestate from the anaerobic digestion is used to produce compost, providing an additional revenue stream. In addition to handling the solid food waste, the project is designed to convert the collected spent oil into biodiesel using prepackaged processing units by Springboard Biodiesel. The facility is anticipated to annually produce 2,541 tons of biogas, 5,184,000 kWh of electricity, 14,756 tons of compost, and 59,616 gallons of biodiesel. A rigorous profitability analysis was conducted in order to project cash flows for fifteen years. The total capital investment of the plant is $5.6MM and the expected NPV of the project is -($682,000). The estimated IRR of the project is 12% and the 3-year ROI is 7%. Given the project’s negative NPV, our recommendation is to adopt such a process solely for environmentally beneficial waste management purposes. A key takeway is that in order for such a project to be profitable it would need to target more than just 5% of the total commercial food waste produced.Publication Optimization of Oleosin 30G Production for Echocardiography(2017-04-18) Krysiewicz, Annette; Parsons, Andrew; Rodriguez-Labra, SergioProvided they are uniform in size, monodisperse microbubbles behave as contrast agents to enhance echocardiographic imaging. Compounds like Oleosin 30G with surfactant-like properties help stabilize microbubbles - thereby ensuring their uniform size. Designed herein is an industrial-scale plant to produce medical-grade Oleosin 30G with a process consisting of three steps: 1) upstream production via recombinant E. coli in an integrated batch bioprocessing model, 2) downstream purification, and 3) processing by microfluidic manifolds. Ultimately Oleosin 30G-coated microbubbles are manufactured, ready for injection within one month. Owing to its unique properties and cost-effective production, Oleosin 30G has the potential to outcompete current market leader Definity®. Altogether, overall yield of Oleosin 30G constitutes 7.39 kg/year to provide for 100% market saturation. Financial analysis indicates pursuing Oleosin 30G for echocardiography applications is very profitable with a 296% return on investment and holds potential for production expansion should the market demand increase.Publication Coffee to Biofuels(2017-04-18) Giller, Chelsea; Malkani, Bhavish; Parasar, JoshThis project proposes a production plant that will utilize 9.58 million kg/year of spent coffee grounds in order to produce 1.03 million liters/year of coffee biofuel and 2.56 million kg/year of biomass pellets. This plant will be located in northern New Jersey, where the maximum amount of spent coffee grounds can be obtained every day from each of the five boroughs in New York City. Practically, trucks could obtain grounds from 875 Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts coffee shops, collected 3-4 times per week. Overall uptime is taken to be 90%. The biodiesel is formed by oil extraction, conversion to free fatty acids and glycerol in a fat splitter and esterification in a bubble reactor. The biomass pellets are formed by drying and pelletizing after removal from the extractor. Thorough sensitivity analyses were performed to determine plant feasibility based on gas prices, flow rate and a combination of both. Based on the current market value of gas and realistic expectations of coffee collection, total capital investment is $4,028,000 and a weighted average cost of capital of 15% is applied. The NPV of this project in 2017 is -$6.8 million. The IRR is negative and the third-year ROI is -22%. Therefore, given the current biodiesel market and coffee ground accessibility, pursuing this project is not recommended. However, when the biodiesel price is at its 90th percentile over the past 10 years and a capacity of five times as much coffee grounds per year is obtained, matching the total of Bio-Bean, the IRR is 17%, the NPV in 2017 is $0.9 million and third year ROI is 9.5%. If biodiesel price reaches $4 per gallon and the investing company has the ability to access coffee grounds from the equivalent of 4,375 coffee shops, this project may be feasible, just as long as the investing company does not have an alternative investment with a NPV higher than $0.9 million over the next 20 years.Publication Polyether Plant Design(2017-04-18) Hum, Christina; Wang, Carol; Tassano, MauricioIn recent years, the global market for polyethers has seen rapid expansion due to the growth of the construction, automobile, and foam industries. Polyethers are principally sold to polyurethane plants to produce a wide range of flexible and rigid foams that are used in a wide range of applications from automotive upholstery to inks. Consequently, the process for manufacturing polyethers is extremely vital to the consumer goods market and for maintaining the quality of life to which many people have grown accustomed. In this report, a plant has been designed in the Asia-Pacific region to produce 100 million pounds of a 3,000 g/mol polyether polymer per year. The process consists of five main steps: reaction, initiation, addition of propylene oxide (PO), elongation of the growing polymer chain, purification of polyether, and stabilization of polyether. The key features in this process design include a pre-reactor for activating our glycerin initiator, two reactor vessels in series for the polymerization, and a continuous gravity decanter catalyst removal system. Multiple safety features were also implemented, including vessel purging and pressurized reactors to avoid leaks and keep PO in the liquid phase. Ultimately, our design produces three batches per day of 101,000 lbs of polyether for 330 operating days. Finally, using a three-pass water wash with 90% catalyst removal in each pass, the final purity of our polyether with respect to potassium is 0.9 ppm. The profitability analysis for the current design estimates an NPV of $30,378,100 and an IRR of 53.40%. The return on investment is 51.01%. Sensitivity analyses to operating cost and profit showed that the plant is robust even amidst market fluctuations, and the project is a profitable endeavor.Publication An Efficient and Safe Cooking Stove for Las Delicias, El Salvador(2017-04-18) Castaner, Maria; Li, Daniel; Minor, NicolasThe primary objective of this project was to design an efficient and safe cooking stove based on the resources available in El Salvador while ensuring it could be inexpensive to produce. The stove is a cuboid, 18"×18"×12" in dimension, and weighs 75 lbs. It has a top cover to cook on, and a unique three-chamber design: a chamber for combustion, a chamber to pump hot air into the combustion chamber with a bellows, and a third chamber to add insulation material. A ventilation tube connects the inner chamber with the exterior to safely vent flue gas to the outside. The stove is made out of stainless steel, and uses sand as an insulator. The product’s overall energy efficiency was calculated to be about 33%, and it requires approximately 19-20 minutes to boil 5 liters of water assuming a pot diameter of 14”. The estimated manufacturing cost of producing the first 200 stoves is $51.77 per unit, without including capital equipment costs. A unit can be priced at $65, which would give the manufacturer a 25% margin while maintaining competitiveness in the market against stoves such as Turbococina and Ecocina. The stove is estimated to cost a family $15 per month to operate, which corresponds to 50% in charcoal fuel savings compared to using an open flame. The stove can be manufactured using local labor and would take on average 6 to 7 hours to construct one unit.Publication On the Production of High-Purity Docosahexaenoic Acid from Heterotrophic Microalgae(2017-04-19) Zhu, Andrew; Nowack, Lea; Jeong, Min YoungOmega-3 fatty acids provide significant health benefits and are a popular nutritional supplement in the nutraceuticals industry. Omega-3 fatty acids such as docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA) have been reported to improve heart health and mental health. In addition, DHA consumption has been tied to improvements in infant cognitive development. Therefore, high-purity DHA is a desired ingredient in the production of infant formula. The omega-3 oils originating from fish tend to have carcinogenic risks in addition to a bad odor. In recent years, the industry trend has shifted to producing these omega-3 fatty acids via microalgae species– making it a profitable time to enter the DHA production market. The proposed design is for a plant to cultivate the Schizochytrium cells in the upstream process, and then extract and purify the desired omega-3 fatty acid oils in the downstream process. The project proposal called for production of 881,800 lb DHA per year, but our plant has the capacity to produce 1,148,000 lb DHA per year at a competitive price of $362.90 per lb of DHA. Clinton, Iowa was chosen as the plant location due to its proximity to the Mississippi River and the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) plant, allowing for direct access to water and waste disposal. Our process is estimated to have an IRR of 153.8% with a NPV of $775,600,000 and a ROI of 206.5%. The process itself begins with fermentation of the microalgae cells, starting with lab-scale fermentors, increasing in size to seed fermentors, and finally scaling up to production fermentor size. Schizochytrium sp. is the strain of heterotrophic microalgae, chosen for its ability to accumulate lipids in high concentration, and its ability to produce DHA triglyceride in high selectivity with respect to other omega-3 fatty acids. Following fermentation, extraction operations are carried out with a hexane solvent and bead mill to extract the crude oils. The hexane is then evaporated and recycled back to the bead mill. The purification process of the crude oil involves saponification of the triglycerides into fatty acid salts. Acetic acid is then added to convert the salts into the final docosahexaenoic acid product. The saponification and protonation reactions take place in Scheibel columns. The final DHA product is 98% pure by mass, and will be sent to a pack out station to be packaged into pharmaceutical grade drums for customers.Publication Brewer's Spent Grain to Xylitol & Polylactic Acid(2017-04-19) George, Alexander; Simet, Kelsey; Carradorini, Anthony; Faour, NabilaWith this project, the authors seek to present a desirable and novel process for converting brewers’ spent grain into two value-added products: the alternative sweetener, xylitol, and a biodegradable plastic, polylactic acid. This particular process is based in the Philadelphia Naval Yard, and uses the spent grain from surrounding breweries and microbreweries as its input. However, while the collection logistics and input quantity may change, the process is one that may be implemented anywhere, with varying degrees of success. The process consists of collection, universal pretreatment, then a split to feed one of two continuous fermenters. A highly acidophilic strain of the yeast Candida tropicalis ferments xylose into xylitol, which is then purified and pelleted in a marketable state. Lactobacillus delbrueckii bacteria ferments glucose into lactic acid, which is then polymerized to form polylactic acid of the desired molecular weight. This polymer is then purified and processed for sale. This product profile is optimal, as it incorporates both of the major constituents of the grain – cellulose and hemicellulose. Under the current market conditions, this process is expected to be financially desirable. We estimate a return on investment of 25.5%, with an internal rate of return of 30.95% and a net present value of $34.5M by 2032. However, if the price of polylactic acid were to rise, as market patterns suggest it may, this process could quickly become even more profitable. We therefore recommend pursuing the proposed process, and possibly expanding to other densely populated areas.