Comprehensive economic analysis of a multi-tubular reactor

ABSTRACT

Multi-tubular reactors allow for highly selective and mostly highly exothermic catalytic or non-catalytic reactions to occur making them essential in various industrial processes. Our Present work was to develop a generalised rigorous costing method applicable to industrially designed multi-tubular reactors. In this report, a Fischer–Tropsch (F-T) industrial multi-tubular reactor was rigorously costed. Capital costs totalled to R,52,491,606 with material costs attributing the highest cost contribution (48%). The operating cost amounted to R,18,258,067 with cleaning and maintenance attributing the highest cost contribution(67%). The reactor purchase price was evaluated to R,36,201,107. This differed by 41.5% from the purchase price found using a shell and tube heat exchanger costing method. The total annual cost (TAC) assuming a 3-year payback was found to be R,35,755,269.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Multi-tubular reactor
• costing
• catalyst
• fabrication
• Fischer–Tropsch process

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, Howard College, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.