An Environmental Techno-Economic Assessment for Fatty Acid Removal from Fatty Acid Ester Production with a Membrane Contactor

Abstract

Fatty acid removal is challenging in esterification processes due to the similar structures between fatty acids and their esters. Traditional methods have high product loss, energy consumption, and waste generation. This study introduces a novel ceramic TiO2 membrane contactor combination with a propylamine extractant, facilitating selective fatty acid extraction under mild, low-pressure conditions with minimal oil loss. A membrane flux of 700 g/m2<middle dot>h was obtained experimentally. To assess the viability of integrating this technology into a complete production system, we conducted an environmental techno-economic assessment (ETEA) benchmarking against activated carbon-based removal. The results demonstrated, for an annual production scale of 2000 m3 isopropyl palmitate (IPP), the membrane process showed a significantly lower fatty acid removal cost (<euro>31/ton IPP) compared to activated carbon (<euro>81/ton IPP). Despite higher environmental impacts associated with titanium dioxide and amine usage, this membrane technology overall offers an energy-efficient, product-conserving approach suitable for green bioprocessing.