Techno‐economic analysis of protein concentrate produced by flash hydrolysis of microalgae

Abstract

Process simulation and techno‐economic analysis (TEA) of 95 wt % protein concentrate (water‐soluble peptides and free amino acids) from microalgae was performed using SuperPro Designer v9.0. The analysis includes processes such as microalgae cultivation, harvesting, protein extraction, and spray drying. The subcritical water‐based Flash Hydrolysis (FH) process was used in generating bench‐scale continuous flow reactor experimental data on protein extraction from microalgae slurry. The TEA is conducted for a baseline capacity of 153 metric tonnes per day (MT/day) protein concentrate production requiring a throughput of 336 MT/day dry algae assuming 54 wt % protein content. Sensitivity analysis reveals the following baseline economic figures. Fixed capital investment (FCI): $286 million; annual operating cost (AOC): $146 million; annualized cost: $185 million/year at 10% discount rate for 15 yr; unit cost of production: $2.99/kg protein depending on the algae slurry density; minimum selling price: $4.31/kg protein. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 881–890, 2018

Protein Recovery from Underutilised Marine Bioresources for Product Development with Nutraceutical and Pharmaceutical Bioactivities

“…This can be achieved by either simulation using different mathematical models or by conducting actual trials [372]. To significantly save time and cost for process development, simulation has been used to analyse technical and economic feasibility of industrial production of proteins from different SPBs (kingfish [373], catfish [374], tuna [375], and shrimp [376]) and microalgae [377,378]). Industrial production of fish protein hydrolysate (FPH) from yellow tail kingfish processing by-products (YTKPBs) by chemical and enzymatic hydrolysis with microwave intensification was simulated using a commercial simulator, SuperPro Designer [373].…”

Design of Value Chains for Microalgal Biorefinery at Industrial Scale: Process Integration and Techno-Economic Analysis

“…The soluble protein value chain is also least investigated in literature in terms of process design and economic evaluation. Asiedu et al (2018) provided a TEA for production of a dry protein hydrolysate powder (amino-acid and peptides) produced via flash hydrolysis from S. obliquus cultivated in open ponds. Assuming 81% of protein extraction and conversion, they ended with production cost of 2.99 € kg −1 protein and a minimum selling price of 4.31 € kg −1 protein (Asiedu et al, 2018).…”

“…Currently, most applications of microalgal biomass are still for food, feed, and high value applications (Vandermeulen et al, 2012;Vigani et al, 2015;Rajesh Banu et al, 2020). The economic potential of various microalgae products has been studied previously by several authors (Davis et al, 2014;Gong and You, 2015;Quinn and Davis, 2015;Dong et al, 2016;Thomassen et al, 2016;Laurens et al, 2017;Asiedu et al, 2018;DeRose et al, 2019). Ruiz et al (2016) gave an overview of the different market scenarios for a benchmark microalgal composition.…”

Production of microalgae with high lipid content and their potential as sources of nutraceuticals

“…However, commercial expansion of the use of microalgae protein is often obstructed by the fact that proteins of many microalgae species are biologically indigestible, a drawback attributed to their hard cell walls (Ursu et al 2014 ). Chemical hydrolysis methods are mainly used to recover proteins; digestion of biomass with sodium hydroxide at higher temperatures usually provides a recovery efficiency of around 81% (Asiedu et al 2018 ). The recovery efficiency varies with microalgae species and also depends on degradation resistance.…”