Application of Techno-economic and Sensitivity Analyses as Decision-Making Tools for Assessing Emerging Large-Scale...

New ways and technologies for synthesizing adsorbent materials have been emerging based on the green chemistry concept for the sustainable use of available resources. In this sense, the chitosan-based products arise as a promising technology alternative for application of several fields that include mitigation, prevention, and control of environmental issues. Nevertheless, there is a lack of information about the development and behavior of these topologies at the industrial scale. This study addressed the techno-economic and sensitivity analyses as decision-making tools to assess promising topologies for production of chitosan-based bio-adsorbents. From the data provided by process inventory, economic analysis of these routes was implemented. The evaluation allowed obtaining a start point market price for chitosan microbeads (64.40 $/t) and chitosan microbeads modified with TiO₂ nanoparticles (37 $/t). The economic analysis also showed that there is a vast potential to explore the chitosan market that enables generation of very profitable businesses from the implementation of those processes, considering the obtained economic performance indicators for both topologies. It is crucial to highlight that these indicators were slightly higher for chitosan microbead production. In addition, the sensitivity analysis indicated that the chitosan-TiO₂ process could resist higher fluctuations in the operating costs, which might indicate that this topology might be a reliable alternative between evaluated cases.