Algal Oil Production

Modeling and Evaluation using SuperPro

Designer

INTELLIGEN, INC.
Simulation, Design, and Scheduling Tools
for the Process Manufacturing Industries
www.intelligen.com
Intelligen, Inc.

Introduction
In recent years, the scope of research on microalgae has expanded from merely
improving production of traditional products (e.g., nutrients for the food supplement
industry) to developing new products such as biofuels. In fact, algae are now
considered one of the most promising feed stocks for biofuels. The interest in algae
as a fuel source is partly due to environmental motives (e.g., reduction in nonrenewable fuel use, reduction in net CO2 production, and efficient use of farmland)
and partly due to technological improvements related to cheaper and more-efficient
genetic modification of algae, which has the potential to greatly improve its
productivity.1
Microalgae can be used to produce a number of different biofuel products, such as
ethanol, butanol, and fatty acids (lipids) which can be converted into biodiesel.
Alternatively, the whole algae biomass may be processed into crude oil, although
this process is relatively inefficient. As a result, production of lipids or direct
production of ethanol and butanol are considered to be more promising than
conversion of algal biomass into crude oil. Furthermore, although production costs of
commodity products synthesized from algae in photobioreactors are currently much
too high to achieve profitability, there is great potential for algae to be used for
production of fuels and chemicals as the related technology (including the
productivity of genetically-engineered strains) continues to develop.
The SuperPro Designer model associated with this example provides a basic
representation of an algae production and purification process that generates a
lipid, tripalmitin, a triglyceride of palmitic acid abbreviated as TAG in the SuperPro
model. TAG could subsequently be converted into bio-diesel or jet fuel. This
example was created by modifying a related model developed by Dr. Daniel KleinMarcuschamer (DKM) at the Joint BioEnergy Institute in Emeryville, CA. DKMs
original SuperPro model can be downloaded from
http://pathway.soe.uq.edu.au/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page. DKMs model
converts TAG into aviation fuel as its main product. The BioDiesel example that
ships with SuperPro Designer analyzes a process for converting TAG into bio-diesel.

1 Process Description
This example analyzes the production and purification of TAG algal oil synthesized in
raceway ponds. Approximately 8.3 metric tons (MT) per hour of purified algal oil is
produced. The SuperPro file associated with this example, titled AlgalOil.spf, can be
found in the AlgalOil subdirectory of the SuperPro EXAMPLES directory. This example
has been divided into six sections: Algae Ponds, Algae Harvesting, Hexane
Extraction, Degumming, Anaerobic Digestion, and Cogeneration. Each of the
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sections in this example has been assigned a different color (black, blue, brown,
green, purple, and orange, respectively). Flowsheet sections in SuperPro are simply
sets of related unit procedures (i.e., processing steps). The purpose and basic steps
associated with these sections are described briefly below. Note that throughout this
document, it is assumed that you have a basic understanding of how to set up and
simulate processes with SuperPro Designer. Also note that this flowsheet is entirely
in continuous mode of operation. Therefore, scheduling information is not specified,
and all operations are assumed to run at steady state.

1.1 Algae Pond Section

This section is devoted to the production of algae in raceway ponds, as well as the
supporting nutrient and water supply infrastructure. The nutrients include
Phosphate (DAP, 1 MT/h) and Nitrate (15 MT/h), which are fed in from raw material
storage tanks through hoppers (HP-101 and HP-102). The water supply includes
both Seawater (1,000 m3/h) and Groundwater (2,200 m3/h). In addition, a large
quantity of aqueous feed (98,402 m3/h) is recycled from the Algae Harvesting
Section back into the inlet of the raceway ponds (RP-101). In other words, the feed
water (i.e., seawater and groundwater) is only about 3% of the total water flowing
into the raceway pond; it is added in order to make up for evaporative losses within
the ponds and to make up for water lost to the downstream processing steps.
Algae production within the raceway ponds is modeled using a stoichiometric
aerobic bio-oxidation unit procedure (under the menu: Unit Procedures \
Continuous Reaction \ Environmental Reaction \ Stoichiometric \ WM
Aerobic Bio-oxidation). The biomass formation parameters are specified on the
Reactions tab of the operation associated with this procedure (Figure 1). In this
example, CO2, DAP, Nitrate, Sulfate, and Water are consumed within the raceway
ponds, and Biomass, Oxygen, and Salts are produced (the stoichiometry for this
reaction can be seen at the bottom of Figure 1). Note that the stoichiometry for the
reaction (which can be specified by clicking on the
button) must be balanced on
a mass basis (i.e., total mass of reactants = total mass of products). The
stoichiometric coefficients are derived from experimental data. An optimistic
reaction extent of 100% was assumed. Nitrate is the limiting component. This
means that 100% of the Nitrate is consumed. Substantial amounts of unconsumed
Sulfate, DAP, and CO2 remain at the completion of the reaction. The excess CO2 is
lost to the atmosphere as part of the Evaporation stream leaving the raceway
ponds. This stream also contains Nitrogen, Oxygen, a small amount of NOx, and a
large amount (1,000 MT/h) of water vapor. Note that some of the CO2 involved in
the reaction (22 MT/hr) is produced within the Cogeneration section of this model
and the remainder (41 MT/hr) is piped from a local electric power utility (not
included in the model). Before being fed into the raceway ponds, these CO2-rich
streams are combined and sent through a cooler (HX-101) in order to reduce their
temperature to 32 C.
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It was assumed that the average residence time of the liquid in the algae ponds is 4
days. This is specified on the Volumes tab of the dialog window shown in Figure 1.
This specification results in 1084 bonds, each having a working volume of around
9,000 m3 and a total volume of around 10,000 m3. The calculated working volume
can be seen on the Volumes tab of the operations dialog.

Figure 1: The Reactions tab of the aerobic bio-oxidation operation used to

represent algae growth
The total volume can be seen by right-clicking on RP-101 and choosing Equipment
Data (see Figure 2). A depth of 0.2 m was assumed for the ponds, resulting in a
surface area for each pond of approximately 50,000 m 2, or 5 hectares (ha).
Consequently, the total surface area of all 1084 ponds is approximately 5,420 ha.
This is a massive surface area, equivalent to 15.9 times the size of New York Citys
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Central Park, or 0.63 times the size of Manhattan. Thus the algae production facility
would need to be located in a deserted area where there is plenty of cheap land in
order for this type of project to be economically viable.
The algae concentration in the ponds is 0.35 g/L. The flowrate of algal biomass
exiting the ponds is 34.7 MT/h. Assuming that each pond is operational and
productive for 330 days/ yr (or 7920 h/yr), this leads to annual biomass production
of roughly of 275,000 MT. Based on these values, the areal productivity of the ponds
is approximately 50.7 MT/ha-yr. This is consistent with estimates from the literature
regarding the current upper limit of long-term commercial productivity 2, although it
is expected that this areal productivity limit will increase in the future due to
scientific and technological innovations. Note that the productivity is influenced by a
variety of factors such as location (including temperature effects and the amount of
annual solar radiation), layout of the production system, algae species, etc.
Furthermore, the optimal pond design depends on factors such as the location and
the algae species2. The productivity is also dependent on the time of year, since this
impacts the temperature, magnitude of daily solar radiation, etc. The constant
biomass formation rate of this model represents average annual performance.

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Figure 2: The Equipment Data dialog of RP-101

1.2 Algae Harvesting Section

The purpose of this section is to concentrate the algae and then break it up in order
to allow the oils to be recovered in the subsequent section. The first concentration
step takes place in the clarification units (CL-101), where the algae settles to the
bottom of the tanks with the aid of the flocculant that was added immediately
upstream (MX-110). The algae-rich heavy stream which exits the clarification tanks
is then sent to the centrifuge (DC-101), where it is further concentrated from 5%
Biomass (dry cell mass) to 15% Biomass. The supernatant streams from the
Clarification and Centrifugation units are combined and recycled back to the
Raceway Ponds.
The concentrated Biomass stream is sent to the sonicators (HG-101) for cell
disruption, which is represented by the following mass stoichiometry:
100 Biomass 7 Ash + 42.2 Cell Debris + 0.8 NHP + 4.0 PL + 20 Proteins +26
TAG
NHP stands for non-hydratable phospholipids, PL stands for hydratable
phospholipids, and TAG is the triacylglycerol product. The assumed extent of cell
disruption is 95%. Consequently, for every 100 kg of biomass entering the
sonicators, 0.95 x 26 = 24.7 kg of TAG is released and available for further
processing downstream.

1.3 Hexane Extraction Section

The mixture of disrupted biomass is sent to a decanter (V-101) where the lipid-rich
oil phase (99.8% TAG) is separated as the light phase and sent to the Degumming
section of the process. The heavy phase leaving the decanter is combined with
hexane in a mixing tank (V-102) and. Here the remaining oil components (NHP, PL,
and residual TAG) are extracted from the aqueous phase into the organic phase. The
contents of this tank are then centrifuged (in DC-102) in order to separate the
aqueous phase and the remaining solids from the oil-rich organic phase. The
separated solids and bulk aqueous phase are then sent through a protein extraction
unit (GBX-101) in order to recover proteins which can be sold as animal feed. The
rest of the material exiting the protein extraction unit is sent to the Anaerobic
Digestion Section for additional processing.
The oil-rich organic phase which exits centrifuge DC-102 is sent to an evaporator
(EV-101). There most of the hexane is recovered and recycled back to a storage unit
(V-103) for reuse within the hexane extraction tank. A small amount of fresh hexane
is added (using MX-104) in order to make up for the hexane lost during the hexane
centrifugation and evaporation steps. Meanwhile, the oil-rich phase coming off the
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bottom of the evaporator and the TAG oil phase from the decanter unit are
combined and sent to the Degumming section for further processing.

1.4 Degumming Section

In this section, the lipid rich input stream is heated to 70 C (using HX-103) and
transferred into the Citric Acid Addition tank (R-101). Here citric acid is added in
order to convert NHP into PL. The mixture is then cooled (in HX-104) and sent to a
tank (V-104) where wash water is added. The material flowing out of the tank is
then centrifuged (in DS-101) in order to separate the TAG product from the other
components. This results in approximately 8.2 MT/h of TAG product, or 65 MT/yr of
product assuming an annual facility uptime of 330 days/yr. The TAG product could
subsequently be processed into other products such as aviation fuel, naphtha, etc.
Such a process is analyzed in Dr. Klein-Marcuschamers original SuperPro model,
which can be downloaded from
http://pathway.soe.uq.edu.au/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page). Alternatively, TAG
can be converted into biodiesel using a process similar to that analyzed in the
BioDiesel example of SuperPro.

1.5 Anaerobic Digestion Section

Waste streams from the Algae Harvesting, Hexane Extraction, and Degumming
sections are sent to the Anaerobic Digestion section in order to convert the
remaining biomass and other organic components into methane fuel. The combined
inlet streams are heated to 30 C using HX-701 prior to digestion in AD-701. The
generated gaseous stream, which is rich in methane, is sent to the cogeneration
unit. Most of the remaining aqueous material could be recycled back to the process
to provide additional water and nutrients to the Algae Pond section.

1.6 Cogeneration Section

Utilities such as cooling water, steam, and electricity play a very important role in
this process due to the massive scale of the facility. The table below, which was
extracted from the Excel Custom Report, displays the requirements associated with
the heat transfer agents used by this process.
Heat Transfer Agent
Cooling Water
Steam
Steam (Gen)

kg/yr

kg/h

64,769,811,01
6
96,738,38
7
42,807,23
4

8,178,00
6
12,21
4
5,40
5

The role of the Cogeneration section is to meet the demands of the plant for steam
and electric power. Methane produced in the anaerobic digester is combusted in a
boiler (SG-701) and generates high-pressure steam. The CO2-rich flue gas from the
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boiler is sent to the Algae Ponds to promote algae growth, while the high-pressure
steam is utilized to generate electricity in a turbogenerator (T-701). The electricity
demand for this process can be viewed by selecting View \ Resource Demand
Breakdown \ Power (see Figure 3). This screen shows the Std Power electricity
usage associated with the overall process, the individual sections, and each
individual procedure within the model. To see the instantaneous power demand,
change the Time Ref for Demand option at the bottom of this dialog to hr. This
provides the power demand in kWh per h, or kW. In this case, the instantaneous
demand is 11,553 kW, or roughly 11.6 MW.

Figure 3: The Std Power electricity demand (on a per-hour basis)

The rate of electricity produced by this process can be viewed by opening the
Steam Expansion operation dialog associated with the turbogenerator and selecting
the Expansion Model tab (Figure 4). On this dialog, you can see the power
generated by each stage of the turbogenerator as well as the overall electrical
power generation (based on the total shaft power and a user-specified efficiency
factor). In this example, the 18 MW turbogenerator creates 16.2 MW of electrical
power, which exceeds the 11.6 MW demand from the process. The excess electricity
produced by this process is sold to the grid.

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Figure 4: Electricity production from the turbogenerator

To account for the financial benefit of electricity sold to the grid, a selling price of
$0.08/kW-h was specified. This was accomplished by first clicking the Process
Explorer button (
), selecting the Util tab in the Process Explorer, and doubleclicking the Std Power entry under the Power Types node. The properties dialog
associated with the Std Power entry is shown in Figure 5. There you can see the
purchase and selling prices for electricity within this process. SuperPros cost
calculations account for electricity that is produced and consumed by a process as
savings (i.e., avoidance of expenditures for electricity purchases). Electricity sold
to the grid is accounted for as Revenue or Credit.

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Figure 5: The Std Power properties dialog

In addition to producing electricity, the 6.99 MT/h of 5 bar steam exiting the
turbogenerator (top stream) is used to meet the heating needs associated with the
evaporator (EV-101), the degumming heater (HX-103), and the degumming wash
tank (V-104) since these three units use a total of only 5.4 MT/h of 152 C steam. To
accomplish this heat recovery, a new heating agent called Steam (Gen) was
created (see the Util tab of the Process Explorer). The cost of this heat transfer
agent was set as $0.00. Then Steam (Gen) was selected as the heat transfer
agent for the operations within units EV-101, HX-103, and V-104. The result of these
specifications is a reduction in the overall utility usage and associated utility costs
since there is no longer any cost associated with heating EV-101, HX-103, and V104.
The cost of utilities was reduced further through virtual heat exchange between
the HX-701 Preheater (P-42) of the anaerobic digester and the HX-101 Flue Gas
Cooler (P-8). In this case, all the heat required by HX-701 is supplied by exchanging
heat between HX-101 and HX-701. In addition, some of the cooling required for HXIntelligen, Inc.

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101 is met through this match. Virtual heat integration between two units is
accomplished using SuperPros Energy Recovery interface, which allows you to
establish relationships between operations that require cooling at high
temperatures (heat sources) and operations that need heating at low temperatures
(heat sinks). To view the Energy Recovery interface, right-click on a blank area of
the flowsheet and select Energy Recovery. This will display the dialog window
shown in Figure 6. Here you can view the operations of the flowsheet that require
cooling (i.e., potential heat sources). Notice that the first operation in the list (P-8:
Cool-1) has an extraordinarily high cooling requirement (40 million kcal/h) at a high
temperature. This operation requires roughly 8,000 MT/h of cooling water. Also
notice that the Recovered checkbox is checked for this operation, and there is a
Matching % of 14.89%. This means approximately 15% of the cooling load for the
P-8: Cool-1 operation can be met by exchanging heat between P-8: Cool-1 and P-42:
Heat-1. The choice of P-42: Heat-1 as the recipient for this excess heat was made by
clicking on the View/Edit button for that operation (see Figure 7).
Notice that 100% of the heat required by P-42: Heat-1 can be supplied by P-8: Cool1 (see Figure 7). In other words, the heat integration between P-8 and P-42 fully
eliminates the heating load of P-42 and reduces by approximately 15% the cooling
load of P-8 .

Figure 6: The Energy Recovery dialog

For more information on SuperPro Designers virtual Energy Recovery capabilities,
please refer to the SuperPro manual and the ReadMe file of the BioDiesel example
that ships with SuperPro.

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Figure 7: View/Edit the Energy Recovery matches

2 Simulation Results
2.1 Material Balances
This plant produces approximately 65,500 MT of algal oil per year. The quantities of
each raw material needed to produce this amount of oil are displayed in the table
below, which shows the material requirements in MT/yr, MT/h and MT/MT MP (MP =
main product, which is algal oil in this case). This table was extracted from the Excel
version of the Materials & Streams report of this example. Reports in SuperPro
are generated through the Reports menu of the main menu bar. The format and
contents of the reports can be customized by selecting Reports \ Options from the
main menu bar.

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BULK MATERIALS (Entire Process)

Material
Air

MT/yr

MT/h

MT/MT MP

1,316,174

166.18

20.10

Citric Acid

119

0.02

0.00

CO2

322,073

40.67

4.92

DAP

7,920

1.00

0.12

Flocculant

1,026

0.13

0.02

Hexane

2,372

0.30

0.04

Nitrate

118,800

15.00

1.81

Nitrogen

919,846

116.14

14.05

7,631

0.96

0.12

NOx
Oxygen
Salts

42,808

5.41

0.65

258,392

32.63

3.95

SOx

601

0.08

0.01

21,579

2.73

0.33

Water

26,285,961

3,318.94

401.39

TOTAL

29,305,303

3,700.16

447.50

Sulfate

SuperPros Streams & Mat. Balance report also contains tables which summarize
the consumption of each raw material within each specific section of the process
(e.g., Algae Ponds, Hexane Extraction, Degumming, etc.). In addition, this report
provides tables with detailed stream information (e.g., flowrate, composition,
temperature, pressure, etc.) A small portion of the Stream Details table is shown
below.
Stream Name

Nitrate

S-105

Phosphate
(DAP)

S-107

Source

INPUT

P-4

INPUT

P-5

P-4

P-3

P-5

P-3

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

25.00

25.00

25.00

25.00

1.01

1.01

1.01

1.01

2105.66

2105.66

1556.86

1556.86

Destination
Stream Properties
Activity (U/ml)
Temperature (C)
Pressure (bar)
Density (g/L)
Total Enthalpy (kW-h)

190.70

190.70

8.18

8.18

Specific Enthalpy (kcal/kg)

10.94

10.94

7.04

7.04

Heat Capacity (kcal/kg-C)

0.44

0.44

0.28

0.28

0.00

0.00

1.00

1.00

Nitrate

15.00

15.00

0.00

0.00

TOTAL (MT/h)

15.00

15.00

1.00

1.00

TOTAL (m3/h)

7.12

7.12

0.64

0.64

Component Flowrates (MT/h)

DAP

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2.2 Cost Analysis

SuperPro Designer performs thorough cost analysis and generates three pertinent
reports (through the Reports menu). The table below displays the key economic
evaluation figures for this example. This table was extracted from the Economic
Evaluation Report (EER), generated in Excel format. For a facility of this size
(5,420 ha of pond surface area), the total capital investment is roughly $305 million.
The estimated annual operating cost is $112 million, which results in a unit
production cost of $1.71/kg of algal oil. The results calculated for the Return-OnInvestment, Payback Time, etc. are based on selling prices of $1.80/kg of Algal Oil
and $180/MT of the Protein for Animal Feed byproduct.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (2015 prices)

Total Capital Investment

305,344,000

Capital Investment Charged to This Project

305,344,000

Operating Cost

111,793,000

$/yr

11,436,880

$/yr

Savings (due to Power Recycled)

Savings (due to Heat Recovery)
Net Operating Cost
Main Revenue
Other Revenues
Total Revenues
Cost Basis Annual Rate

1,632,497

$/yr

98,723,849

$/yr

117,876,000

$/yr

8,727,032

$/yr

126,603,000

$/yr

65,486,691

kg MP/yr

Unit Production Cost

1.71

$/kg MP

Net Unit Production Cost

1.51

$/kg MP

1.93

$/kg MP

Unit Production Revenue

Gross Margin

22.02

Return On Investment

14.41

Payback Time
IRR (After Taxes)
NPV (at 10.0% Interest)

6.94

years

8.20

4,119,000

MP = Total Flow of Stream 'Algal Oil'

The EER also provides a summary of the magnitude of each component of the
annual operating cost, as shown in Figure 8. To automatically include charts such as
this one in SuperPros reports, select Reports \ Options and check the Include
Charts checkbox (lower right corner of the dialog). In this example, the facilitydependent cost is the greatest contributor to the annual operating cost, followed by
raw materials and utilities. The facility-dependent cost is calculated based on
estimates of depreciation, maintenance, and miscellaneous factory expenses.

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Figure 8: Annual operating costs breakdown

The economic results in the table and figure above were calculated based upon a
set of default values and user specifications entered into the model. The parameters
which impact the economic results can be classified into the following categories:
1) Information associated with individual operations and streams. This includes
the unit costs and quantities of each raw material, the disposal costs and
amounts of relevant waste products, the unit costs and hourly requirements
for various labor types, the unit costs and amounts of various utilities, etc.
The selling prices and quantities of the products are also taken into account
for certain calculations.
2) Equipment-related information. This includes the capital and operating costs
for each equipment unit (e.g., purchase cost, installation, maintenance,
consumables, etc).
3) Section-Related information. This includes cost factors that are used to
determine the capital and operating costs for each section of the process.
4) Process-related information. This includes economic evaluation parameters
that are specified at the process level, such as time valuation, financing,
production level and additional operating cost information for the entire
project.
Each of these cost categories are described in greater detail below:

2.2.1 Operation and stream costs and revenues

Resource requirements associated with materials are determined based on the
mass and composition specifications for each of the flowsheets input streams. To
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determine material costs, the annual amounts of each raw material are calculated
by SuperPro and multiplied by the unit costs specified by the user on the Economics
tab of each material. The material costs for this example are shown in the table
below.

MATERIALS COST - PROCESS SUMMARY

Bulk Material
Citric Acid
DAP

Unit
Cost
($)
1.07

Annual
Amount
118,800

Annual Cost
($)

127,116

0.43

kg

70.00

7,920

554,400

1.85

1.00

1,025,571

kg

1,025,571

3.43

Hexane

2.00

2,372,040

kg

4,744,080

15.86

Nitrate

50.00

118,800

MT

5,940,000

19.86

Sulfate

0.35

139,392

kg

Water

1.00

17,469,286

Flocculant

TOTAL

MT

m3(STP)

48,787

0.16

17,469,286

58.41

29,909,272

100.00

Other costs and revenues associated with streams are determined based upon
specifications in the Stream Classification dialog (Figure 9). This dialog can be
accessed by selecting Stream Classification on the Tasks menu. From this dialog
you may specify the following:

Selling prices for output streams classified as revenue or credit

Treatment/disposal costs for output streams classified as one of the waste
types (solid waste, aqueous waste, organic waste or emission)

Furthermore, for an input stream classified as a raw material, a purchasing price is

automatically calculated by SuperPro based on the streams composition and the
purchasing prices of its ingredients.

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Figure 9: Stream Classification dialog

In the lower right corner of Figure 9, a Main Product/Revenue stream and its flow
basis can be specified (note that the drop-down list for the Main Product will only
contain input and output streams that are classified as Revenue streams). Annual
revenues for the process are then calculated based on the unit prices and quantities
of all revenue streams associated with the process. The table below shows the
various revenue sources (and savings) associated with this example:
Revenues/Savings
Algal Oil (Main Revenue)
Protein for Animal Feed (Revenue)
Std Power(Revenue)
Std Power(Savings)
Steam(Savings)
Cooling Water(Savings)
Total Revenues
Total Savings

117,876,044
7,611,730
1,115,302
11,436,880
1,160,827
471,670
126,603,051
13,069,378

$/yr
$/yr
$/yr
$/yr
$/yr
$/yr
$/yr
$/yr

Note: Revenues in the table above are related to products (including power) that
are sold. Savings in this table are related to avoidance of expenses due to energy
integration and in-process electric power generation and use.
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Labor requirements are specified on the Labor, etc. tab of an operations dialog
window. The total requirement for each resource in each operation in the process is
then multiplied by its respective unit cost to compute the associated operating
costs. The annual labor requirements and costs associated with this process are
shown in the table below.

LABOR COST - PROCESS SUMMARY

Unit Cost
($/h)

Annual Amount
(h)

Annual Cost
($)

Operator

25.00

196,703

4,917,586

89.0

Supervisor

35.00

Labor Type

TOTAL

17,356

607,467

11.0

214,060

5,525,053

100.0

2.2.2 Equipment Costs

The purchase cost of equipment is an important parameter that affects the direct
fixed capital investment of a project and indirectly affects the annual operating cost.
SuperPro is equipped with correlations for estimating the purchase cost of
equipment based on its type and size. However, the built-in correlations for most
types of equipment are more suitable for fine chemical and pharmaceutical types of
facilities than for large-scale algae production plants. For these types of processes,
we advise users to enter their own equipment cost data for better accuracy. Userdefined costs may either be specified for equipment of a certain size (e.g., $164,000
per raceway pond) or as a User-Defined Cost Model (UDCM). Figure 10 displays the
Purchase Cost tab of the equipment data dialog of the Raceway Pond unit
procedure. This tab can be accessed by right clicking on the units icon, selecting
Equipment Data, and then switching to the Purchase Cost tab. In this case, a UDCM
has been chosen for the equipment cost estimate. The UDCM allows a user to
specify a cost vs. size correlation that is used by the tool to estimate the cost of a
piece of equipment. Data are entered in the form of the power-law equation: C =
Co x (Q/Qo)a where Co is a reference cost, Qo is a reference size, and a is an
exponent (usually less than 1). The user must also provide a range of size values
where a given cost correlation is valid. In this example, the specifications ensure
that for all ponds up to a maximum volume of 10,000 m 3, the capital cost will be
$25,000 x (PondVolume/1000)0.8. Note that this value is also adjusted for inflation
based on the Year of Analysis and the Inflation rate specified at the project level in
the Economic Evaluation Parameters dialog (you can right-click on the flowsheet to
bring up its context menu and select Economic Evaluation Parameters to modify
these values.) Also note that it is possible to store the UDCM information associated
with each of your equipment types in the User database for future reuse. Detailed
information on how to do this is provided in the ReadMe file of the Lysine example
that ships with SuperPro Designer.

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Figure 10: Equipment Purchase Cost tab and User Defined Cost Model
parameters
After the base purchase cost for the equipment is estimated, there are several
adjustment parameters that are applied to it. These parameters (such as material of
construction, installation factor, annual maintenance cost, depreciation, number of
standby units, etc.) affect the total purchase cost of the equipment, the direct fixed
capital, the facility operating cost, and other economic results. The equipment
adjustment parameters may be accessed on the Adjustments tab of the
equipment data dialog. Furthermore, costs associated with consumables (i.e., items
that are used by the equipment unit for one or more batches before being disposed)
can be specified on the Consumables tab.
Using the cost models for each equipment unit and their respective cost
adjustments, the total equipment cost is calculated based upon the quantity of each
equipment item that is required (see table below). Notice that roughly 80% of the
total equipment cost is associated with the algae ponds (RP-101) due to the very
large number of ponds required.

MAJOR EQUIPMENT SPECIFICATION AND FOB COST (2015 prices)

Quantity/
Standby/
Staggered

Name

Description

1/0/0

HP-101

Hopper

Unit Cost ($)

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Cost ($)

19

16,000

16,000

5,000

5,000

51,000

51,000

107,000

107,000

151,000

755,000

164,000

177,
776,000

548,000

548,000

272,000

272,000

42,000

42,000

20,000

20,000

28,000

28,000

14,000

14,000

42,000

42,000

32,000

32,000

115,000

115,000

44,000

44,000

Vessel Volume = 1633.99 L

1/0/0

HP-102

Hopper
Vessel Volume = 108.93 L

1/0/0

P-101

Centrifugal Pump
Pump Power = 81.04 kW

1/0/0

P-102

Centrifugal Pump
Pump Power = 181.52 kW

5/0/0

HX-101

Heat Exchanger
Area = 689.24 m2

1084 / 0 / 0

RP-101

Aeration Basin
Volume = 9997.33 m3

1/0/0

V-102

Blending Tank
Volume = 1767.3 m3

1/0/0

DC-102

Decanter Centrifuge
Throughput = 265.1 m3/h

1/0/0

EV-101

Evaporator
Transfer Area = 17.36 m2

1/0/0

V-103

Flat Bottom Tank

Volume = 13.7 m3

1/0/0

HX-103

Heat Exchanger
Area = 7.14 m2

1/0/0

R-101

Stirred Reactor
Volume = 4804.49 L

1/0/0

HX-104

Heat Exchanger
Area = 56.72 m2

1/0/0

V-104

Blending Tank
Volume = 16.7 m3

1/0/0

DS-101

Disk-Stack Centrifuge
Throughput = 15 m3/h

1/0/0

HX-701

Heat Exchanger
Area = 14.02 m2

1/0/0

AD-701

Anaerobic Digester

8,002,000

8,
002,000

Volume = 76893.19 m3

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1/0/0

SG-701

Steam Generator

1,320,000

1,
320,000

3,212,000

3,
212,000

Throughput = 140 MT/h

1/0/0

T-701

Multi-Stage Steam Turbine

Shaft Power = 18 MW

1/0/0

DC-101

Decanter Centrifuge

272,000

272,000

167,000

835,000

Throughput = 691.1 m3/h

5/0/0

HG-101

Homogenizer
Throughput = 45.6 m3/h

31 / 0 / 0

CL-101

Clarifier

1,090,000

33,
790,000

Surface Area = 2434 m2

1/0/0

V-101

Decanter Tank

823,000

823,000

Volume = 204 m3
TOTAL

228,
121,000

2.2.3 Section-related costs:

In SuperPro Designer, the direct fixed capital (DFC) contributions are estimated for
each individual section of a process. Each sections DFC is calculated as the sum of
direct, indirect, and miscellaneous costs associated with that sections capital
investment. The direct costs include elements that are directly related to an
investment, such as the cost of equipment, process piping, instrumentation,
buildings, facilities, etc. The indirect costs include elements that are indirectly
related to an investment, such as the costs of engineering and construction.
Additional costs such as the contractors fee and contingencies are included in
miscellaneous costs. By default, the DFC is estimated based on the purchase costs
of all major process equipment multiplied by cost factors that are applied to the
purchase costs. The cost factors include installation factors which are equipmentspecific, as well as other factors specified at the section level. The default sectionlevel factors can be edited through the DFC tab of a sections Capital Investment
Dialog. This may be accessed by first selecting the desired section in the Section
Name drop-down list on the Section toolbar and then clicking the Section Capital
Cost Adjustments button ( ) on the same toolbar. The capital cost adjustments
dialog for the Algae Ponds section is shown in Figure 11. Note that the default
process-section-specific cost factors for piping, instrumentation, buildings, etc., are
more appropriate for high-value chemical and biochemical plants and they will
greatly overestimate the total capital cost associated with an algae production
facility. In order to more-accurately estimate the total DFC of the facility in this
example, we increased the equipment-specific installation factors and zeroed all the
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section specific multipliers. The installation cost factors are assigned to each
individual equipment unit through the Adjustments tab of each of their
Equipment Data dialogs. For instance, the installation cost factor for centrifuge
DC-101 is shown in Figure 12. In this case, the installation cost associated with the
centrifuge is set to be equal to two times its purchase cost (the default is 0.5).
Therefore the total DFC associated with the centrifuge is three times its purchase
cost. The increased installation cost factor accounts for the costs of foundation,
piping, instrumentation, insulation, buildings, engineering costs, etc. associated
with the centrifuge. For units that are constructed on-site, the installation factor is
much smaller. For instance, the installation factor for the Raceway Ponds is only 0.2.

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Figure 11: Capital Cost Adjustments: DFC tab

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Figure 12: Capital Cost Adjustments: DFC tab

In addition to the Section-level capital cost specifications, there are also
specifications at the Section level related to operating costs. These can be accessed
by first selecting the desired section in the Section Name drop-down list box that is
available on the Section toolbar and then clicking the Section Operating Cost
Adjustments button ( ) on the same toolbar. Here you can specify how various
operating costs should be calculated for each section. For instance, the
specifications that are used to calculate the facility-related annual operating costs
are shown in Figure 13. Like the Capital Cost Adjustments dialog, the Operating Cost
Adjustments dialog provides a variety of ways to have costs calculated for various
aspects of the process. In this case, the facility-related operating costs are
calculated based on depreciation, maintenance, and miscellaneous costs. Other
tabs of this dialog provide options for calculating the annual costs related to labor,
lab/QC/QA expenses, utilities, and miscellaneous expenses (e.g., ongoing R&D,
process validation, etc.)

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Figure 13: Operating Cost Adjustments dialog for the Algae Ponds section

2.2.4 Process-level cost parameters

To view or modify the project level cost parameters, click on an empty area of the
flowsheet and then select Economic Evaluation Parameters. This will bring up
the dialog shown in Figure 14. Here you can specify parameters which impact the
economic calculations such as the year of analysis, construction period, inflation
rate, etc. On the other tabs of this dialog, you can specify information related to

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financing of the project and depreciation, production rate and product failure rate,
and expenses related to taxes, sales/marketing, and royalties.

Figure 14: Economic evaluation parameters for the project

Based on the capital and operating cost specifications, SuperPro estimates the total
fixed capital, annual operating cost, profitability (including margin, return on
investment, and payback time), cash flow calculation results, etc. Various economic
results may then be viewed from the Executive Summary (View \ Executive
Summary), the Economic Evaluation Report (Reports \ Economic Evaluation),
the Itemized Cost Report (Reports \ Itemized Cost), and the Cash Flow Analysis
Report (Reports \ Cash Flow Analysis). The tables shown previously in this
section were all extracted from the Economic Evaluation Report.
NOTE: Most of the multipliers used in cost analysis can be stored in the User
Database of SuperPro and retrieved for future work on similar projects. This
facilitates standardization and improves the accuracy of cost estimation. For
information on how to take advantage of the database capabilities of SuperPro,
please consult the SynPharmDB document in the EXAMPLES \ SYNPHARM
subdirectory of the SuperPro installation. Please refer to the SuperPro Designer
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Help facility or manual for more detailed information on economic analysis using
SuperPro.

3 Final Thoughts on Algae as a Fuel Source

According to the United States Energy Information Administration, 134.5 billion
gallons of gasoline were consumed in the U.S. in 2013 3. In addition, the annual
usage of jet fuel in the U.S. was 20.2 billion gallons in 2009 4, and U.S. diesel usage
was approximately 50 billion gallons per year in 2006. 5 Based on these numbers,
the densities of each fuel, assumed conversion ratios from TAG to various products,
and the areal productivity calculated from this model, the total landmass required to
replace all US fossil fuel consumption with algae-derived fuel may be estimated. The
results are shown in the table below.
Annual
Annual
TAG
Total Land
% of US
Demand
Demand
Equivalent
Required
Land
(Gal)
(MT)
(TAG : Fuel)
(ha)
Mass
134,500,000, 371,630,22
Gasoline
000
5
1 : 0.5
61,965,052
7.7%
Aviation
20,200,000,0
Fuel
00
61,165,600
1 : 0.5
10,198,658
1.3%
50,000,000,0 165,593,75
Diesel
00
0
1:1
13,805,424
1.7%
As this table demonstrates, current US transportation fuel demands could be met
through conversion of algae products into fuel. However, doing so would require
extremely large facilities. Furthermore, based on the assumptions within this model,
replacing current production of these three fuel types would require roughly 10.7%
of the entire continental US land mass (i.e., roughly 85 million ha of the 808 million
ha land mass of the continental US excluding Alaska and Hawaii). However,
research into methods of maximizing algae productivity is ongoing, and the
estimates for future algae productivity vary tremendously from one source to
another. For instance, the US Department of Energy estimates that it may be
possible to produce enough fuel from algae to replace all petroleum fuel in the
United States by using only 0.42% of the US land mass, assuming substantial gains
in algae productivity in the future. This is less than 15% of the area of corn grown in
the US.6

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1References

R.H. Wijffels et al., Potential of industrial biotechnology with cyanobacteria and

eukaryotic microalgae, Current Opinion in Biotechnology (2013), vol. 24.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2013.04.004.

2 G2 ALGAL paper: P.M. Slegers, et al., Scenario evaluation of open pond microalgae
production, Algal Research (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.algal.2013.05.001.
3 http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=23&t=10
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel
5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_fuel
6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel