Techno-economics analysis of biosurfactants productions from pseudomonas aeruginosa OPEFB-based with variations in purifications method

Abstract

Palm oil is one of the many natural resources in Indonesia. One of the byproducts of oil palm production is oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB), which account for 23% of the weight of palm oil. Most of the content of OPEFB is cellulose, which can be used for the production of biosurfactants. The Biosurfactant (rhamnolipid) production process from OPEFB is assisted by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and encompasses three main process sections: pretreatment, fermentation, and purification. This study aims to assess the techno-economic feasibility of biosurfactant production using two different purification methods: solvent extraction and adsorption/desorption chromatography. All process simulations are done by using SuperPro Designer v9.0. The efficiency of production operations and the economic efficiency of rhamnolipid production from lignocellulose will be assessed by comparing two different methods. The results of the simulation show that with purification using a solvent extractor, the purity of rhamnolipid is 98.88% with an IRR value of 75.86%. This shows that using a solvent extractor is more beneficial than using adsorption/desorption chromatography, which produces 99.98% rhamnolipid with an IRR value of 3.05%.