Commercialization of novel catalytic materials to meet renewable energy goals, such as the conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals, suffers from substantial uncertainty in the cost to manufacture new catalysts at industrial scale. Sensitivity analyses for catalytic biomass conversion and other processes reveal the significant impact these uncertainties can have on overall process economics.<br/><br/>While the chemical engineering literature contains substantial information on process cost estimation, no publicly available tool enables cost estimates for novel pre-commercial catalytic materials. The Catalyst Cost Estimation Tool (CCET) has been developed to aid accurate estimation of catalyst costs at early stages in the development cycle by incorporating state-of-the-art estimation methods into a user-friendly tool to be distributed online free of charge. The estimation methods are amenable to advanced synthetic techniques, for which there may not yet be comparable industrial processes on which to base a cost estimate. This is accomplished by inclusion of process templates for translating lab-scale synthesis steps into the materials and energy balances, unit operations, and resulting capital and operating cost components for a commercial-scale production plant.<br/><br/>Both Excel- and web-based prototypes of the CCET have been developed and reviewed by catalyst industry experts. The prototype tools contain libraries of raw materials, process equipment, price indices for cost escalation, and other datasets to reduce the data-gathering requirements for a preliminary cost estimate. Built-in functions perform unit conversion, stoichiometric calculations, cost database lookups, and output generation so that the user can focus on the relationship of cost to key input quantities, such as yield, precursor price, or salvage value. This presentation will detail the methods and current prototypes of the CCET, validation using both commercially available (e.g. FCC, ethylene oxidation) and pre-commercial materials (e.g. colloidally synthesized nanoparticles), and decision-making use cases in catalyst R&D and commercialization.

Cost insight for catalyst R&D and commercialization decisions with the catalyst cost estimation tool

256th National Meeting (2018)

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