Techno-economic analysis of furfural production with various pretreatment of oil palm empty fruit bunches using SuperPro Designer

Oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) are solid wastes that can be processed into several chemicals, one of which is furfural. Furfural can be used as a solvent and intermediate compound in many chemical industries. Nowadays, furfural needs in Indonesia are fulfilled through import, especially from China. Therefore, developing a furfural plant in Indonesia is required to fulfill the needs for furfural in Indonesia and surrounding countries. Based on that necessity, this study provides the preliminary study and simulation of furfural production from OPEFB by three kinds of pretreatment methods: soaking in aqueous ammonia (SAA), steam explosion (SE), and ammonia fiber expansion (AFEX). Simulation is conducted using SuperPro Designer Academic License to get the plant's mass & energy balance and economic parameters. The plant will be built in Kawasan Industri Dumai, Pelintung, Riau. Then, by assuming 7920 hours annual operation time and 2000 kg OPEFB/h input rate, the simulations showed that furfural production with AFEX pretreatment is more economically feasible than with SAA and SE pretreatment. The value of profitability parameters as follows: Internal Rate of Return (IRR) = 49.77%, Net Present Value (NPV) at i = 9.6% = USD 39,210,000, and payback time = 1.75 years.