Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Techno-economic analysis of renewable aviation fuel production:

From farming to refinery processes
Pimpun Tongpun a, Wei-Cheng Wang b, *, Penjit Srinophakun a
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand
b
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, 70101, Taiwan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study considered the techno-economic evaluations for the economic feasibility of jatropha derived
Received 29 November 2018 hydro-processed renewable jet (HRJ) fuel, starting from the farming processes to the refinery (fruit-to-
Received in revised form fuel) processes, based on the situations in Taiwan. The farming processes included plantation, growing
19 March 2019
and harvesting. The fruit-to-fuel processes included fruit dehulling, shell combustion, oil extraction,
Accepted 1 April 2019
Available online 8 April 2019
pyrolysis of press cake, oil refinery and product separation. In addition, the calculated minimum jet fuel
selling price (MJSP) was compared to the cases from two different countries (Thailand and Cambodia)
and to the scenario without cultivation. The MJSP of the Taiwan case, $6.25/L jet fuel, was higher than the
Keywords:
Techno-economic analysis
cases of Thailand and Cambodia as well as the without-cultivation scenario. Moreover, according to the
Bio-jet fuel annual aviation fuel consumption from one of the aviation companies in Taiwan, the MJSPs of various
Jatropha blending fractions were calculated and compared with the cases of Thailand and Cambodia.
Plantation © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Process simulation
Front-end engineering design

1. Introduction
Renewable energy in air transportations has attracted attentions
to the public due to the amount of jet fuel consumption and the
concerns of environmental impact as greenhouse gas emissions
including carbon dioxide (CO2), oxide of nitrogen (NOx), and water
vapor (Peter J Gray-Mullen). To deal with these issues, researchers
along with governments have been continuously searching and
working on the sources for producing aviation fuels to support the
needs of the fuel. Renewable sources such as live plant or other
organic matters have to meet the following rules, including non-
food crops, stable prices, requiring less agricultural inputs, no
competition with food crops regarding land and water, before they
can replace the traditional crude oil and maintain environmentally
sustainable (Kandaramath Hari et al., 2015). These sources can be
basically divided into three groups, plant oils such as vegetable oils;
algal oil obtained from the ocean; waste oils from waste residues
and bio-oil (pyrolytic oils) derived from biomass. Jatropha plant oil
is one of the plant oils which meets the above requirements and has
great availability around the globe (Wang and Tao, 2016). It has
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: wilsonwang@mail.ncku.edu.tw, wwang77777@gmail.com
(W.-C. Wang).
been used for producing bio-jet fuel since 2008 by the aircraft
companies such as Boeing, GE, Ralls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney, Airbus
and oil companies such as Honeywell UOP, PetroChina and Neste
Oil. The produced fuels have been added to the aircraft oil tanks
with different proportions and test flights with these fuels have
been performed (International Civil Aviat, 2012).
The oil content of jatropha ranges from 18.4% to 42.3%, even to
50e55% (Joachim, 1996; Corre
et al., 2007). The seed kernel of
jatropha contains primarily crude fat (oil) and protein and the
compositions of jatropha oil consist of protein, fat and moisture for
24.60%, 47.25% and 5.54%, respectively (Akintayo, 2004). Oil from
Jatropha has been considered as an excellent source of renewable
fuels such as biodiesel and bio-jet fuel, with low emissions and
good combustion performances in engines (Castro Gonza
les, 2016).
Jatropha oil contains both saturated and unsaturated fatty acids,
including palmitic acid (16:0) of 14.5% and stearic acid (18:0) of
6.5%. The major of unsaturated fatty acids are oleic acid (18:1) of
43.13% and linoleic acid (18:2) of 35% (Bashar Mudhaffar Abdullah
et al., 2013; Emil Akbar, 2009; Nzikou et al., 2009). Therefore, it
has been reported to be one of the good sources for producing
hydro-processed renewable jet (HRJ) fuel, which includes the
processes of hydro-processing (hydrogenation, propane cleave,
hydro-deoxygenation/decarboxylation/decarbonylation) and
hydro-isomerization/hydrocracking (Wang and Tao, 2016; Wang,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.014
0959-6526/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17
2016). The hydro-processing route saturates the unsaturated glyc-
erides into saturated ones, produces fatty acids by removing pro-
pane backbone and converts the deoxygenated the produced fatty
acids into straight chain alkanes. Hydro-isomerization/
hydrocracking turns the straight chain alkanes into short chain
and branched molecules for the purpose of meeting the specifica-
tions of jet fuel, especially flash point and cold flow properties.
Techno-economic analysis (TEA) has been applied to evaluate
the process or system corresponding to its mass and energy bal-
ances for the judgement of economics or commercialization. Esen
et al. (2006) have conducted the techno-economic analysis for
specific systems such as ground source heat pump (Esen et al.,
2006), air-couple heat pump (Esen et al., 2007) and greenhouse
heating system (Esen and Yuksel, 2013) to evaluate their economic
potentials. Many studies presented the conceptual designs and
economic evaluations targeting at jatropha feedstock. Yusuf et al.
(Yusuf and Kamarudin, 2013) conducted the TEA of biodiesel pro-
duction from Jatropha curcas oil through supercritical methanol
process. The results showed that, with the production capacity of
40,000 tons biodiesel per year, the jatropha oil feed rate of 5000 kg/
h, and the biodiesel purity of 99.96%, the price of biodiesel was
calculated as $0.78/kg. Yusuf and Kamarudin (Tewfik et al., 2012)
proposed the TEA of biodiesel production from jatropha curcas at
the plant capacity of 8000 and 50,000 metric tonnes per year. The
production of biodiesel started from jatropha fruits, with the
average productivity of 3.7 metric tonnes of fruit per 4000 m2 (acre)
and oil recovery of 25 wt% from seed. The processes of oil extrac-
tion, transesterification, seed cake treatment and recovery of side-
streams were considered. The price of biodiesel was calculated in
the range of $0.3-$0.7 per liter, based on the Egyptian case. Wang
(2016) performed the TEA of HRJ production from jatropha cur-
cas, dividing the bio-refinery processes into 6 parts: (1) Fruit
Dehulling; (2) Shell Combustion; (3) Oil Extraction; (4) Press Cake
Pyrolysis; (5) Oil Upgrading; (6) Product Separation. The minimum
jet fuel selling price (MJSP) from the scenario which started from
jatropha fruit was calculated as $5.42/gal, while the scenario
starting from jatropha oil was calculated as $5.74/gal. Additionally,
the TEAs of HRJ process have also been performed recently.
Diederichs et al. (2016) compared the techno-economic analyses of
jet fuel productions from vegetable oil through hydro-processing
and the one from thermochemical (gasification and FT) and
hybrid (gasification and biochemical upgrading) processes. The
hydro-processed jet fuel provided the MJSP of $2.22/kg jet fuel,
lower than the ones of thermochemical ($2.44/kg) and hybrid
($2.50/kg) processes. Klein-Marcuschamer et al. (2013) conducted
the economic evaluations of bio-jet fuels from microalgae and
pongamia oils and demonstrated that the prices per gallon of fuels
were $31.98 and $8.9, respectively. Pearlson (Pearlson et al., 2013)
compared various plant sizes for producing HRJ fuels and found
that the fuel prices were $4.12/gal ~ $4.16/gal for 98.28 MMgal/yr
(million gallons per year) and $4.73/gal ~ $4.77/gal for 30.16
MMgal/yr. The feedstock cost is the largest contributor, accounting
for 70e80% production cost. Catarina et al. (Alves et al., 2017)
investigated the usages of different feedstocks, such as sugar crop,
oil crops and lignocellulosic biomass, for co-productions of bio-jet
fuel and high valuable products in a bio-refinery platform. It was
depicted that the main production costs were attributed to the
feedstock cost, selling prices of biochemical, investment costs and
key process-inherent parameters (conversion yield and oil content
in biomass). Chu et al. (2017) performed the financial and uncer-
tainty analyses of HRJ fuel productions from camelina, carinata and
used cooking oil. The prices of bio-jet fuel derived from camelina,
carinata and used cooking oil were $0.84/L, $0.75/L and $0.46/L,
respectively. The costs of feedstock, the selling prices of fuel
product and the meal co-products have the significant impacts on
7
the financial performances of the process.
The economic analysis was also conducted for evaluating the
plantation, growing and harvesting, the front part of the biofuel
production for the purpose of obtaining feedstocks. Caffrey et al.
(2014) investigated the economic issues related to the farm to
bio-refinery continuum for the production of ethanol from soluble
sugars recovered from sweet sorghum. The machine cost assump-
tions and product inputs were applied in the techno-economic
evaluation for calculating the break-even sale prices of ethanol.
Five scenarios including ethanol, fermentation broth, syrup, ensiled
biomass and biomass were investigated and the results showed
that the ethanol production with biomass scenario has the lowest
break-even price ($0.36/L), attributed to the highest ethanol pro-
duction of 2255 L. Additionally, through the single parameter
sensitivity analysis, it was found that the impacts of economics was
correlated to the conversion efficiencies, crop yields and press ef-
ficiencies. In addition, in the study carried out by Cardoso et al.
(2018), mechanization in harvesting and planting operations was
evaluated economically in the sugarcane agriculture due to the
lower biomass production cost, higher ethanol yield and higher
electricity surplus compared to the manual technologies.
Komiyama et al. (2001) evaluated the production costs of the
biomass conversion processes for producing oil, ethanol, methanol,
and hydrogen, considering the apparatus costs including the har-
vesting, fertilizing, utility, fertilizer, land, and labor for an annual
harvest of 1250 dry tonne/km2. The product cost was calculated
ranging from $188 to $313/TOE (tons of oil equivalent). It was also
found that the major portion of cost was attributed to land, labor
and facility costs. Davis et al. (2011) studied the economics of
autotrophic microalgae with two pathways: autotrophic produc-
tion in open pond and closed tubular photobioreactor (PBR) system,
with five year timeframe. Through the mass and energy balances in
the process simulation as well as the capital/operation costs ob-
tained from vendors, literature and standard engineering, the costs
of fuel were estimated to be $8.52 and $18.10 per gallon of fuel for
open pond and PBR productions, respectively, for the capacity of 10
million gallons per year of raw algal oil. The costs of fuel increased
to $9.84 and $20.53 per gallons of fuel for upgrading algal oil into
green diesel through hydro-treating. Fasaei et al. (2018) also con-
ducted the study analyzing the processing cost, energy consump-
tion and resource recovery of the large-scale harvesting and
dewatering systems for microalgal biomass. The operational costs
for open and closed cultivation systems were found to be $0.56-
$2.25 and $0.11-$0.67 per kg of algae, respectively. Labor has a
significant contribution to the total costs. Ray et al. (2018)
compared various rice-based cropping systems in economics
point of view and found that rice-cabbage system has the highest
productivity and profitability. The presentations of chemical fer-
tilizer, followed by seed and irrigation increased the yield-scaled
GHG emissions. Manzone et al. (2015) undertook an ad hoc study
and a specific calculation model to evaluate the woodchip pro-
duction by black locust short rotation coppice. It was reported that
the price of biomass should be at least $115.77/tonne dry mass, in
order to obtain economic sustainability. Cutz and Santana (2014)
conducted a techno-economic analysis of integrating sweet sor-
ghum into sugar mills. It was stated that the payback period for the
integrated scenario was 4.49 years, as compared to 7.47 years for
the sugar mill using only sugarcane bagasse as fuel. Ariza-
Montobbio and Lele (2010) conducted the economic analysis of
jatropha cultivations from 45 farmers. The initial investment
included the land preparation, plantation establishment and
annual maintenance costs. The costs of weeding, pruning, fertil-
izers, pesticides and irrigation were included in the plantation
evaluation. Depending on the cultivation scenarios, the diesel
equipment was a significant factor in the annual maintenance costs
8 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17
during the irrigation process. Nevase et al. (Samodini et al., 2012)
investigated the economics of biodiesel production from jatropha,
including the jatropha plantation, jatropha oil extraction, and
jatropha ethyl ester (JEE) production. The costs of JEE and jatropha
oil were found to be $0.44/liter and $0.39/liter, respectively, based
on the 100 kg/hour oil expeller.
Previously the TEA for producing HRJ fuel from jatropha fruits
has been performed. However, the farming process, including
plantation, growing and harvesting, significantly controls the price
of the jatropha fruit feedstock, since the costs of farming land,
farming labors, farming machines, fertilizers, plant protections,
transportations and farming coproducts would increase or deduct
the total production cost of fuel. Besides, the plant spacing and
pickup frequency of jatropha fruit significantly affect the produc-
tion of final fuel. Considering the economic feasibility and the front-
end engineering concept for the HRJ fuel, it is necessary to link the
farming processes with the refinery processes. This study con-
ducted the TEA of jatropha derived HRJ production according to the
local situations including the farming processes for obtaining
jatropha fruits and the refinery processes for obtaining renewable
aviation fuel. The results were additionally compared to the ones
from Thailand and Cambodia due to various local economics for
discussing the differences of MJSP. Furthermore, based on the
annual fuel consumptions in one of the airline companies in
Taiwan, the MJSPs for various blending proportions of renewable
fuel into petroleum aviation fuel were listed and discussed, to
determine the optimal blending ratios for various farming
locations.
2. Methods
Previously, the author (Wang, 2016) presented the work for
turning jatropha fruit into renewable aviation fuel, which included
fruit dehulling, shell combustion, oil extraction, seed cake pyrolysis,
oil refinery, product separation and storage. This study expanded
the previous work by adding the processes of plantation, growing
and harvesting. Additionally, the downstream conversion pro-
cesses, including the equipment purchasing and operating condi-
tions, were evaluated using the local data obtained from the
vendors. The overview of the process is illustrated in Fig. 1.
2.1. Farming processes
Farming processes in this study considered plantation, growing
and harvesting. For plantation part, the land preparation was first
concerned. The annual rainfall in the potential planation area
required for growing jatropha needs at least 900 mm (Franken and
Jongh, 2010). The local rainfall of Taiwan chosen in this study was
1823 mm (Climate-data.org, 2017). The plant spacing for a jatropha
tree was assumed to be 2 m
2 m in a square pattern (Franken and
Jongh, 2010). Wider spacing results in larger trees but hinders
pruning and harvesting as well as leads to lower production yields
(Franken and Jongh, 2010). In our case, a distance of 2 m was
assigned between every four rows, for the needs of intercropping or
mechanized agriculture (Franken and Jongh, 2010). Within a row
Fig. 1. The overview of the process.
the distance between jatropha plants was 1 m (Franken and Jongh,
2010). Based on the survey quoted from the local farmers, for a
100 ha land, approximately 125000 jatropha plants can be grown.
Land plowing and hole digging were the two primary activities for
the plantation in this study. Land should be ploughed for once or
twice to make the land incorporate with fertilizer using subsoil
plow. Table 1 shows the information of plantation equipment and
labors per 100 ha. The lands for jatropha farming were assumed to
be the flat terrain and the farming machinery can be operated
nicely. It was assumed that the machine was operated 8 h per day. If
all the machines operate simultaneously, 18 working days were
needed for 100 ha. A bulldozer with the efficiency of 20,070 m2/h
was assumed to be used in this case. Soil characterization is one of
the most important factors for preparing the jatropha plant.
Jatropha plant favors in the soil that contains air, water, mineral
particles and organic matter with the compositions of 25%, 25%,
45% and 5%, respectively (Franken and Jongh, 2010). Moreover, soil
texture was described as the particle sizes of the sand, silt, and clay
in the ranges of 0.06e2.0 mm, 0.002e0.06 mm, and less than
0.002 mm, respectively (Franken and Jongh, 2010). The primary
chemical property of soil was pH value, in the range of 6e7.2 (Peer,
2010). Depending on the soil conditions, fertilizer and manure were
added to the field with the ratio of 30:1 (Franken and Jongh, 2010).
An optimal fertilizer, which depends on the quality of soil, benefits
the growth rates and production yields of jatropha fruit (Patolia
et al., 2007). The manure and NPK fertilizer need to be applied
twice a year (Franken and Jongh, 2010). Nitrogen helps to stimulate
the plant growth or cell elongation. Phosphorous affects the for-
mation of new cells. Flowers, seeds and potassium enhance the
structures of the cell and the tolerance for drought. In this case, the
ratio of nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium was assumed to be 1:1:1.
For a 100 ha land, based on the calculation, approximately
380,000 kg of fertilizer and 12,500 kg of manure were required
(Franken and Jongh, 2010). A 40 cm deep ripper was ripped with
tractors for well developing the root of jatropha seedlings (Franken
and Jongh, 2010). Before seeding, the holes sizing at 30 cm
30 cm
x 45 cm in width, length, and depth respectively were constructed
by the labors (Franken and Jongh, 2010). Direct and indirect seeding
or transplanting were employed for jatropha growing. Per 100 ha
approximately 187,500 jatropha seeds were used. The hole was
refilled with soil and organic matter with the ratio of 1:1 (Franken
and Jongh, 2010).
For the growing part, pruning jatropha trees, fertilizing and
protecting the plant were the main concerns. Pruning jatropha
trees enhances the growing of new branches and the rate of flow-
ering, leading to the increase in the production yields of jatropha
fruits (Grass, 2009). The jatropha tree needs to be maintained at the
height less than 45 cm for allowing the jatropha fruit to be exposed
to the sunlight and for easily manual harvesting (Andrew Lang,
2013). Approximately 60% of jatropha tree branch has to be cut
and the first cutting was assumed to be at the 6th month (or as the
height of the tree reached 70 cm) (Franken and Jongh, 2010). The
second and third cuttings were carried out after one year and two
years, respectively. After 9 years, the jatropha tree was cut to be
around 45 cm to increase the production yield (Franken and Jongh,
2010). Plant protection includs the removal of weeds and the pre-
vention of diseases and inspects from the landfill. Weeds was
removed manually or through the application of herbicides at least
3e4 times a year depending on the density of weed (Prueksakorn
et al., 2010). In this study, paraquat dichloride as the herbicide
was used for the weed removal. In addition, preventing the insects
and diseases from the landfill leads to the increase in jatropha yield
(Andrew Lang, 2013), which in this case safewin-carbaryl and sulfur
powders were used (Franken and Jongh, 2010). For growing 100 ha
of jatropha plant, 200 tonnes of water was needed for one year
 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17
Table 1
Detail information of plantation equipment and labors (for 100 ha).
Bulldozer
Unit 2 1
Rent fee ($/day) 265
Width of blade (m) 3.2e4.5
Moving speed (m/hr) 6272e6750
Efficiency (m2/day) 160563e243000
Needed day 27
Number of labor needed 3 3
Number of supervisor 2
Diesel Fuel in tank (liter) 200
Fuel refilled day 5 5
Note 1. 3 times per land
2. Needed day ¼ Actual working day * 1.5
3. 8 h per day
*Note: The information is obtained locally.
(Franken and Jongh, 2010).
Jatropha fruits are ready for collection as their colors are turned
into yellow. Immature fruits are unfavored for the production of
jatropha oil (Joachim, 1996). Normally it takes a few weeks to
months for harvesting jatropha fruits. Manual harvesting in a
small-scale plant leads to high selective collection, however, in a
large scale plant manual harvesting needs a huge amount of labors
as well as working hours, which significantly increases the cost. The
picking rates of jatropha fruits were assigned as 8 kg/h depending
on the numbers of labor (Franken and Jongh, 2010). In our case, the
harvesting rate was assumed to be 10 min per tree with two labors
in one jatropha tree. After harvesting, jatropha fruits need to be
dried to reduce the moisture content for easy dehulling (Pradhan
et al., 2010). They were spread over the concrete floor for 7e10
days with the direct sunlight for drying before sending to the fruit
dehulling section (Franken and Jongh, 2010). Forty labors were
needed for plantation, growing and harvesting, including 2 super-
visors. The labor cost was based on the standard farming salary in
Taiwan. Not just jatropha fruits, the leaves, latex and stem bark
from jatropha trees can be also obtained and considered as valuable
products (Igbinosa et al., 2011; Viswanathan et al., 2012).
2.2. Fruit-to-fuel conversions
The conversion processes from jatropha fruits to bio-jet fuel
contain the fruit dehulling, shell combustion, oil extraction, press
cake pyrolysis, oil hydro-treating, product separation and storage
processes, based on the model developed in the previous study
(Wang, 2016).
The jatropha fruit studied in this work was assumed to contain
37.5% of shell and 62.5% of seed. It was dehulled by a dehuller and
transported through a belt feeder (Pandey et al., 2012). The amount
of fruits delivered to the dehuller was 100,000 kg/hr (2400 metric
tonnes per day). After dehulling, the shells and seeds were sent to
the dryer for the 8% moisture removal (Lim et al., 2015). The shells
and seeds were then separated in a separator. The compositions of
fruit, shell and seed as well as the belt feeder, dehuller and sepa-
rator can be found in the previous study (Wang, 2016). Shells
removed from jatropha fruit were burned in a combustor operating
at 750  C and 1 atm (assumed values). The burned residue, shell
ash, contains highly amount of sodium and potassium and can be
sold or re-used as soil fertilizer (Singh et al., 2008). The product
gases from the combustor, approximately 98% of total, can be
recycled as the energy source for the system. The designs of the
heat exchangers can be referred from the previous study (Wang,
2016). An industrial seed pressing machine (De Smet Rosedown,
Mini 500) was selected for performing oil extraction at the rate of
210 kg/hr, based on the length and width of the seed (FACT, 2008).
9
Leveling machine Excavator
1
200 200
3 e
10800 e
259200 0.05 (min/m2)
18 13
3
200 250
5
1. 3 times per land 1. Only used in 10% of land
2. Needed day ¼ Actual working day * 1.5 2. Needed day ¼ Actual working day * 1.3
3. 8 h per day
Approximately 33% of oil was assumed to be obtained from the
jatropha seed (Wang, 2016; Moniruzzaman et al., 2016). Filtration
method, requiring less space and time compared to other tech-
niques and suitable for industrial scale process, was applied to deal
with the impurities. The proportion of the impurities in jatropha oil
was 5e15 wt% (Wang, 2016). The types and specifications of the
filter were described in the previous study (Wang, 2016). After
filtration clean oil was sent to the oil hydro-treating section and the
removed sediment was sent to disposal. The disposal of sediment
per truck per time was locally quoted as $16.2.
The hydro-treating of jatropha oil includes hydro-processing
and hydro-cracking/isomerization reactors. The hydro-processing
reactor converted jatropha oil into straight chain alkanes through
hydrogenation, propane cleavage and deoxygenation (hydro-
deoxygenation, decarboxylation and decarbonylation) (Trejo-
Zarraga et al., 2012). The hydro-processing reactor operated at the
temperature of 360  C, the pressure of 60 bars, the WHSV of 2 h1
and the hydrogen-to-oil ratio of 750 over NiMo/g-Al2O3 catalyst
(Gong et al., 2012). Almost 78.4 wt% of unsaturated oil was satu-
rated through hydrogenation process and the saturated oil was
converted into fatty acids through the propane cleave process.
Furthermore, the produced fatty acids were then converted into
long chain alkanes through deoxygenation. Alkanes with carbon
numbers ranging from C15 to C18 were produced from the hydro-
processing reactor. The co-products includes propane, formed
from the propane cleave; water, formed from the hydro-
deoxygenation; CO2 and CO, formed from decarboxylation and
decarbonylation reactions (Pearlson, 2011). Hydrogen was only
consumed in the hydrogenation, propane cleavage, hydro-
deoxygenation and decarbonylation processes. Unreacted glycer-
ides were recycled back to the hydro-processing reactor, and the
straight chain alkanes were sent to the hydro-isomerization/hydro-
cracking reactor. The second reactor was operated at the temper-
ature of 320  C, the pressure of 48 bars, the WHSV of 2 h1 and the
hydrogen-to-alkane ratio of 500 over the catalyst Pt/SAPO-11 (Gong
et al., 2013a), for the purposes of reducing the freeze point by
cracking the C15 to C18 alkanes into shorter chain length molecules
while maintaining the flash point by rearranging the straight chain
alkanes into branched ones. The product distributions and mass
yields of each species (carbon number 6 to 18) were based on the
experimental data carried out in authors’ research team (Chen
et al., ). The hydro-isomerization and hydro-cracking occurred in
one reactor and large molecules were first split into small ones and
then partially isomerized.
The residue from the extraction of jatropha oil from jatropha
seeds, named press cake, was sent to a pyrolysis fluidized bed
reactor operated at the temperature of 450  C and the pressure of
4 bars with nitrogen gas flowing at 1.75 m3/hr. The stoichiometric
10 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17
equation can be found in the previous study (Wang, 2016). The
product yields for bio-oil, bio-gas and bio-char, obtained from the
literature, were assumed as 53.30 wt%, 38.82 wt% and 7.89 wt%,
respectively (Raja et al., 2010). The bio-oil was composed of ele-
ments of C, H, N and O and the bio-char consisted of C, H, N, O and S,
which the mole fractions of those were found from the previous
literature (Murata et al., 2011). The compositions of incondensable
gas products were H2, CH4, N2, O2, CO2 and CO. The bio-char
separated through a cyclone can be considered as charcoal, fertil-
izer or sources of biogas productions. The gas products were
recycled to the pyrolysis reactor as a fluidizing media or as an en-
ergy source. The bio-oil can be further upgraded through hydro-
processing and used for combustion engines (Raja et al., 2010),
since its properties such as density, viscosity, heating value, cetane
number and pH value can be significantly improved when major
oxygen content within was removed. In addition, the press cake can
be sold directly without further processing since it can be used as
organic fertilizer, medicine and animal feeds.
Four distillation columns were assigned to separate the jet fuel
range products as well as the co-products. The first distillation
column split the gas products (8 wt%) including CO2, H2 and only
C3H8 was collected as the co-product through hexane dissolving.
The second column separated the light liquid products (C6eC8)
from heavy ones (C9eC18). The lighter species were further dis-
tillated in the third column and the naphtha alternatives were then
obtained. The heavy species were processed in the fourth column
and the diesel fuel alternatives were obtained at the bottom. The
products with carbon numbers ranging from C8 to C16 obtained in
the third and fourth columns were viewed as the jet fuel blend-
stock, which the fuel properties, including distillation temperature,
flash point, density, freeze point/cloud point and heat of combus-
tion, were examined through Aspen Plus™ NRTL (Non-Random
Two-Liquid) thermodynamic method, as shown in Table 2. The
predicted values from Aspen Plus™ were within acceptable ranges
compared to the regulations. Further adjustments for the design
specifications of the distillation column are needed to satisfy both
production yield and jet fuel standard. The products including jet
fuel blendstock, diesel and nathpha alternatives were collected in
the storage tanks with 4-week storage capability (assumed value).
The utilities such as power consumption, cooling and heating
duties were simulated according to the previous model (Wang,
2016). The total heat duty can be partially offset by the heat pro-
duced from the combustion of jatropha shell.
2.3. Techno-economic analysis
Based on the mass and energy balances obtained from process
simulation, the overall production cost, including the capital and
Table 2
Comparisons of the fuel properties of jatropha-derived jet fuel with jet fuel standards (International Air Transpo, 2015).
Jatropha - jet International Air Transport Association (International Air
fuel Transpo, 2015)
Distillation temperature
10% Recovery ( C) 170 205
50% Recovery ( C) 211 e 232
90% Recovery ( C) 265 e e
Final BP ( C) 299 300

Flash point ( C) 58 38

Density @15 C (kg/ 757 775e840
m3)
Freezing Point ( C), e 47
max
Cloud Point ( C), min 48 e e
Net Heat of Comb. e 42.8
(MJ/kg)
operating costs, can be determined through techno-economic
analysis. The costs of equipment, material, labor and land for the
farming processes are listed in Tables 3 and 4, which all the costs
were quoted from the vendor. The equipment used in plantation
was assumed to be bulldozer, leveling machine and excavator and
the total costs were calculated based on the efficiencies and actual
working days listed in Table 1. Tractor, transportation vehicle, drying
machine, generator and farming machines (for chemical spray) were
applied in the growing section. Each equipment needs one labor for
operation and two labors for assistance. Baskets were used in the
harvesting section because manual fruit pickup was assumed in this
case. For the material costs, diesel fuel consumptions were
accounted from the fuel consumptions of the farming machines. The
fuel tank capacities of bulldozer, leveling machine and excavator
were 200 L, 200 L and 250 L with the total refill times of 5, 4 and 3,
respectively. Approximately 25500 L and 1000 L of the fuels were
assumed to be used in growing and harvesting sections, respec-
tively. Most of the water was consumed in the growing section,
requiring approximately 300 tonnes (Franken and Jongh, 2010). The
maintenance costs for the equipment were considered from the
second year. For the 1st year cultivation, the usages of fertilizer,
manure, vermicompost and urea were 140 kg/ha, 1 tonne/ha, 1.2
tonne/ha and 44 kg/ha, respectively (Franken and Jongh, 2010).
Approximately 20% more of the seedling needs to be added for
considering the seedling survival. The prices of the materials
mentioned above were quoted from local vendors. Forty labors,
including 38 farming employees and 2 supervisors, were assigned
for 100 ha land. The annual salaries of the labors were based on the
standard rates of compensation plus 1.5 months of salary for the
yearly bonus. The land for farming was selected in a place near the
industrial area, for the purpose of reducing the costs for transporting
the jatropha fruits to the refinery plant. Therefore, high land price
was expected. The locally quoted costs of major equipment for fruit-
to-fuel conversion are listed in Table 5. The scaling exponent and
installation factors were referred from the Engineering handbook
(Peters and Timmerhaus, 1991), and can be ignored when the sizes,
specifications and installations are included in the quoted prices.
The operating and land costs are listed in Table 6. The amount of
catalysts for hydro-processing and hydro-isomerization/cracking
were calculated according to the weight hourly space velocities
(WHSVs) of the reactions in the simulation model. The hydrogen
usage was calculated with regard to the hydrogen consumptions in
hydro-processing (for hydrogenating the unsaturated glycerides,
cleaving the propane and hydro-deoxygenating the fatty acid into
alkanes) and hydro-isomerization/cracking (estimated from the
literature (Gong et al., 2013b)). Natural gas and cooling water were
used for offsetting the heating and cooling duties, respectively. The
salaries of labors in the refinery plant were referred from one oil
National Technology Supervisory ASTM jet fuel specification
Bureau (D910-04a)
205 75
105
135
300 170
38 38
775e830 775e840
47 58
e
42.8 e
 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17 11

Table 3
Equipment costs for plantation, growing and harvesting for 100 ha.

Cultivation Equipment Unit Unit Cost ($/day) Total cost ($) Note

Plantation
Bulldozer 2 266 14357 Costs were estimated as rent fees
Leveling machine 1 199 3589
Excavator 1 199 2592
Growing
Tractor (140 HP) 2 49850 99701
Tractor (80 HP) 3 29910 89731
Round plow (700 ) 3 2493 7478
Round plow (300 ) 5 1296 6481
Transportation vehicle 3 6979 20937
Drying machine 3 26587 79761
Generator (200 kW) 1 49850 49850
Farming machine 12 1496 17946 For weed removal, fertilizing and chemical spray
Harvesting
Harvesting Basket 200 6.65 1330

* Note: the unit cost of the equipment was quoted locally in Taiwan.

Table 4
Annual material, labor and land costs for plantation, growing and harvesting for 100 ha.

Cultivation Operating and land costs Unit Unit Cost ($/unit) Total cost ($) Note

Plantation
Diesel Fuel (liter) 2550 0.7 1745.8 T. CPC Corporation (2017b)
Water (tonne) 50 0.3 15.0 Taiwan Water Corporation (2017)
Equipment mountainous 205.4 1% of rent fee
Fertilizer (kg/ha) 140 0.4 5118.0 140 kg/ha for 1st year (Franken and Jongh, 2010) (l. Taiwan fertilizer co, 2015)
Manure (kg/ha) 1000 0.1 9970.1 1 tonne/ha for 1st year (Franken and Jongh, 2010)
Vermicompost (kg/ha) 1200 0.1 11964.1 1.2 tonne/ha for 1st year (Franken and Jongh, 2010)
Urea (46% Nitrogen) (kg/ha) 44 0.2 731.1 44 kg/ha for 1st year (Franken and Jongh, 2010)
Seedling 150000 0.3 39880.4 1250 trees*1.2*100 ha
Growing (1st year)
Diesel Fuel (liter) 25500 0.7 17457.6
Water (tonne) 300 0.3 89.7
Equipment mountainous 43120.6 10% of sale cost
Safewin-carbaryl (kg/ha) 20 2.2 4386.8 l. Taiwan fertilizer co (2015)
sulfur powder (kg/ha) 20 0.5 930.5 l. Taih feng co (1974)
Paraquat dichloride (kg/ha) 120 1.0 11964.1 Weed removal
Harvesting
Diesel Fuel (liter) 1000 0.7 684.6
Water (tonne) 10 0.3 3.0
Labor
Labor 38 11485.5 436450.6 1.5 monthly salary for bonus
Supervisor 2 15702.9 31405.8
Land
Farming land (m2) 1000000 181.3 1.8Eþ08 Land cost in Tainan, Taiwan (Landsell.com, 2017)

Table 5
Evaluations of equipment for the fruit-to-fuel conversion.

Equipment Unit Unit cost ($) Scaling Exponent Installation Factor Reference

Dehuller 10 1329.3 0.6 1.5 L. Han Ding Co (2016)

Waste vapor condenser 1 3722.2 0.7 1.2 L. Beston Mechanical Technology Co (2012)
Shell Combustor 1 69126.0 0.6 1.3 L. Beston Mechanical Technology Co (2012)
Heat Exchanger 8 3722.2 0.6 1.4 L. Beston Mechanical Technology Co (2012)
Mechanical Pressor 2 14955.1 0.7 1.5 L. Han Ding Co (2016)
Reactor 4 139581.3 0.56 1.1 (L. Weihai Huixin Chemical Mechanic Co)
Vapor-liquid separator 3 12628.8 0.7 1.2 L. Wise Wit Co (2010)
Pump 2 1262.9 0.7 1.5 L. Feng Cherng Electrmachine Co (2007)
Cooler 3 3722.2 0.44 1.3 L. Han Ding Co (2016)
Compressor 2 16616.8 0.69 1.3 (L. Weihai Huixin Chemical Mechanic Co)
Distillation Column 4 29577.9 0.54 1.3 L. Perfect Welding Technology co (1992)
Gas storage tank 5 6646.7 0.49 1.3 A-Plus Industrial Co (2017)
Liquid storage tank 5 3323.4 0.57 1.3 A-Plus Industrial Co (2017)

company in Taiwan (T. CPC Corporation, 2017a). The lands of at the rates of 50 kg, 1 kg and 0.5 kg per tree, respectively, and can
farming and refinery were chosen to be located in Tainan, Taiwan. be sold at the prices of $0.07/kg, $0.17/kg and $3.32/kg (quoted
By-product credits are listed in Table 7, for both farming and fruit- from the local vendor). The total productions of those listed in
to-fuel processes. Jatropha stem bark, leaf and latex were produced Table 7 were for 1 year and for 100 ha. The co-product credits from
12 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17

Table 6
Operating and land costs for the fruit-to-fuel conversion.

Fruit-to-fuel Operating and land costs Consumption Unit Cost Note

conversion ($/unit)

Variable operating cost

Nitrogen (kg/hr) 200 4.6E-06 Shan (2017)
Hydro-processing catalyst (kg) 1171 2730.5a 5% Pd/C
Isomerization/Hydrocracking catalyst 404 864.1a 3.5% Pt/SAPO-11
(kg)
Hydrogen (kg/hr) 806 2.9 Shan (2017)
Natural Gas (MM kcal/hr) 4 0.4 T. CPC Corporation (2017c)
Cooling Water (kg/hr) 882653 3.0E-04 Taiwan Water Corporation (2017)
Impurities
Disposal of impurities (kg/hr) 413 0.3a $166/truck; 500 kg/truck
Electricity
Electricity (kW) 9893 0.1 $0.1/kWh (Taiwan power company, 2017)
Labor
Plant Manager 1 2240000 Taiwan CPC labor salary (T. CPC Corporation, 2017a)
Vice Plant Manager 1 1,960,000
Maintenance Supr 1 630,000
Maintenance Engineer 3 588,000
Maintenance Tech 12 490,000
R&D Supervisor 1 630,000
R&D Engineer 3 560,000
R&D Technician 3 560,000
Plant Supervisor 3 700,000
Plant Engineer 9 644,000
Plant Technician 24 560,000
Yard Employees 3 308,000
Accountant & Secretaries 3 448,000
Land
Land for the plant (m2) 161591 893.8 Industrial land cost in Tainan, Taiwan (Bureau of Land Administration,
2017)
a
The prices were quoted locally.

Table 7
Credits of co-products in farming and fruit-to-fuel processes.

By-product Production Unit price ($/unit) Note

Jatropha Stem bark (kg) 6250000 0.07a 50 kg/tree, cut every year b
Jatropha leaf (kg) 125000 0.17a 1 kg/tree b
Jatropha latex (kg) 62500 3.32a 0.5 kg/tree b
Diesel (liter/hr) 286 0.68 T. CPC Corporation (2017b)
Propane (kg/hr) 118 0.79 CPC Corporation (2017)
Naptha (kg/hr) 281 0.14 SB Jones (1848)
Bio-Oil (kg/hr) 2513 0.31 Mirkouei et al. (2017)
Bio-Char (kg/hr) 72 0.09 Stefan Jirka and Tomlinson (2013)
Shell Ash (kg/hr) 703 0.50 (Yoshimura)
a
The prices were quoted locally.
b
Assumed values.

the farming process were relatively lower than those obtained from
the refinery. Higher selling prices depend upon the researches on
the pharmaceutical benefits of those co-products. Diesel, propane
and naptha were the co-products obtained from the oil refinery
processes. The diesel fuel alternatives can be used as the fuel
feeding to the farming machines in the farming processes. Bio-oils
and bio-chars were the co-products obtained from the pyrolysis of
jatropha press cake. Alternatively, the press cake can be sold
directly to save the equipment costs and energy consumptions for
the pyrolysis process if it is more economically valuable than the
bio-oil and bio-char.
The nth plant assumptions are listed in Table 8. The fixed capital
investment (FCI) includes total direct cost (TDC) and total indirect
cost. TDC is the combination of equipment purchase, ware house,
site development, additional piping and maintenance. The ware
house, site development, additional piping and maintenance were
5.7%, 12.9%, 6.4% and 3% of ISBL (Inside Battery Limit), respectively.
The total indirect cost includes prorateable expenses, field ex-
penses, office construction, project contingency and start-up/
permit costs, which were 8.2%, 30%, 30%, 10% and 8.2% of TDC,
respectively. The total capital investment (TCI) is the summary of
FCI, land and working capital (10% of FCI). Based on the financial
assumptions listed in Table 8, a discounted cash flow rate-of-return
analysis was carried out with the calculated TCI and variable/fixed
operating costs, to determine the minimum jet fuel selling price
(MJSP). All costs were inflated to 2015 through the equation below:

 
Present year index value
Cost in present year ¼ Cost in base year (1)
Base year index value
 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17 13

Table 8
Plant assumptions (based on the Taiwan case).

Parameters Assumptions

Basis year for analysis 2015

Equity for plant financing 50% bank (2008)
Interest rate and term for debt financing 7.7% annually/10 years bank (2008)

Internal rate of return 10%

Total income tax rate 25%
Plant life 30 years
Plant depreciation schedule 7 years CPC Corporation (2017)
Construction period 3 years
Fixed capital expenditure schedule 30% in year 1 deposit þ design
30% in year 2 final downpayment þ test run
40% in year 3
Start-up time 0.25 year
Revenues 50%
Variable costs 75%
Fixed costs 100%
Operating hours after start-up 8400
Site development costs 12.9% of ISBL
Warehouse 5.7% of ISBL
Additional piping 6.4% of ISBL
Maintenance 3% of ISBL
Property Insurance & Tax 0.7% of FCI
Working capital 10% of FCI

Indirect costs % of TDC

Prorated expenses 8.2

Home office and construction 30
Field expenses 30
Project contingency 10
Other costs (start-up and permitting) 8.2

3. Results and discussion land instead of purchasing it can be considered regarding this issue.
Approximately 0.11% of the capital investment was attributed to the
3.1. Baseline economics growing equipment, same as the fuel conversion section, which
includes oil upgrading, product separation and storage section, in
Table 9 shows the baseline economics of farming and fruit-to- the fruit-to-fuel process. The rental of farming equipment can be
fuel processes. The capital investments of cultivation contributed considered for reducing this cost. The capital cost of the harvesting
55% of the total capital investment (TCI), 11% higher than those of part was relatively low owing to the manual harvesting. For the
the fruit-to-fuel process. The purchase of land was the largest fruit-to-fuel conversion, the largest contributor in capital invest-
contributor, which accounts for 55.3% of TCI. Choosing the farming ment is refinery land, attributed to 44% of TCI. The selections of land
land near the refinery plant saves the transportation costs, how- for cultivation and refinery are significant for reducing the cost of
ever, high expenses of the land purchase are expected. Renting the capital investment.
The total contribution of the operating cost in cultivation was $
() 0.003/liter jet fuel, and the negative value was deducted by the
Table 9
credits obtained from jatropha stem bark, leaf and latex, which
Evaluations of farming and fruit-to-fuel processes. accounted for $ () 0.05/liter jet fuel. The operating costs for
plantation and growing were roughly the same, which were
Capital Investment (% of TCI) Operating ($/liter jet fuel)
attributed to the expenses in fertilizer, seedling, plant protection
Cultivation and water. Compared to these, the operating cost of harvesting was
Plantation 0.01 0.01
relatively lower. Labor was the largest contributor to the operating
Growing 0.11 0.01
Harvesting 0.0004 6.65E-05 cost in cultivation, accounting for $ 0.03/liter jet fuel. Applying
Labor 0.03 farming machines instead of hiring labors can reduce the labor cost,
Farming Land 55.30 however, the capital costs and maintenances of those need to be
Credit ()0.05
considered. Compared to cultivation, the operating costs of fruit-to-
Total 55.41 () 0.003 fuel conversion were relatively higher. The costs in fuel conversion
Fruit-to-fuel conversion part, accounting for $ 2.00/liter jet fuel, were attributed to the uses
Fruit-to-oil 0.04 0 of catalyst and the consumptions of hydrogen. The improvement of
Fuel conversion 0.11 2.00 conversion technology which enhances the life of catalyst and re-
Utilities 0.001 0.90
duces the usage of hydrogen would significantly reduce the oper-
Labor 0.10
Refinery land 44.06 ating cost of refinery. Approximately $ 0.9/liter jet fuel was spent on
By-product Credit ()0.91 the utilities including payments of natural gas, cooling water,
Total 44.21 2.09
electricity and the treatments of impurities. This can be reduced if
the energy and water usages between cultivation and refinery can
Note: * Fruit-to-oil includes fruit dehulling, shell combustion, oil extraction and
be combined or shared once their locations are close. The labor cost
seedcake treatment.
*Fuel conversion includes oil upgrading, product separation and storage sections. for refinery was three times the one for cultivation, owing to the
*Utilities include natural gas, water, electricity and impurity removal. local salary differences between farming labors and refinery
14 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17
engineers. The credits from the co-products of fruit-to-fuel con-
version deducted the operating cost by $0.9/L jet fuel, and it can be
increased if the jatropha press cake becomes more valuable.
Noted that carbon trade is not considered in this study. The
possible carbon emission reduction (CER) revenue obtained from
the plantation and the production of renewable aviation fuel can
additionally reduce the cost of production. In addition, intercrop-
ping of other plants with jatropha trees can be an option for making
benefits while growing jatropha. In addition, the characteristics of
soil/fertilizer, the interference with jatropha trees and the profits
obtained from this agriculture products need to be carefully
considered. The fruit-to-fuel process was also compared with other
technologies such as hydro-processed esters and fatty acids (HEFA),
gasification-FT and hybrid (Diederichs et al., 2016), as shown in
Table 10. It can be seen that the capital cost in this study was higher
than HEFA, owing to the additional equipment purchases for fruit
dehulling, shell combustion, oil extraction and press cake pyrolysis.
The MJSP of this process was also higher than those of other
technologies, due to the high operating costs for the fruit-to-oil
processes and high price of refinery land. Table 11 shows the
comparison of cultivation costs with the other literature. Higher
planting cost compared to other studies can be attributed to the
higher prices of fertilizer and seedling for planting jatropha. Rela-
tively higher growing cost was due to the expenses for protecting
the plant. In addition, the cost of labors was the main reason for the
higher harvesting cost compared to other studies.
3.2. MJSPs for different countries
Fig. 2 demonstrates the MJSPs for four different scenarios,
including the Taiwan case (with and without cultivation), Thailand
case and Cambodia case. The MJSP was calculated as $6.3/liter jet
fuel with the consideration of cultivation, based on the Taiwan case.
The contribution of cultivation was estimated to be $2.3/liter jet
fuel, which can be attributed to the capital investment of cultiva-
tion including land and equipment purchasing accounting for
$182 MM. The scenarios based on the Thailand and Cambodia cases
were assumed that the cultivations were done in these two loca-
tions and the jatropha fruits were shipped from those places to
Taiwan for further refineries. The capital costs of cultivation for the
Thailand and Cambodia cases were $66 MM and $20 MM, respec-
tively, which were $116 MM and $162 MM lower than the one for
Taiwan case. This is due to the cheaper land purchasing in these two
Table 10
Comparison of the TEAs with HEFA, gasification-FT and hybrid (Diederichs et al., 2016).
This study (fruit-to-fuel)
Feedstock Jatropha fruit
Feedstock cost ($/tonne) 140
Plant capacity (tonnes/day) 2400
Capital cost (MM US$) 145.6
Operating cost (MM US$/yr) 116
By-product credits (MM US$/yr) 91
MJSP ($/L) 4.00
Table 11
Comparison of cultivation cost with other studies.
This study (cultivation)
feedstock Jatropha
Capital cost ($ MM) 182
Planting cost ($/ha) 698
growing cost ($/ha) 722
Harvesting cost ($/ha) 1473
Transportation cost ($/ha) 200
countries. The MJSPs calculated according to the Thailand and
Cambodia cases were $4.80/L and $4.23/L, respectively, which were
$1.45/L and $2.03/L lower than the Taiwan case. For the purpose of
producing renewable aviation fuel, planting jatropha in Cambodia
is more favorable compared to Taiwan and Thailand. Only $0.24/L
was attributed to the cultivation in Cambodia.
3.3. The MJSPs with various proportions of blending in aviation fuel
The annual aviation fuel consumptions in one of the airline
companies in Taiwan was around 2 million tonnes per year (China
Airlines, 2017). This section considered the blending of renewable
aviation fuel into traditional ones for the blending proportion from
10% to 100%. The MJSPs for various blendings in three different
countries, Taiwan, Thailand and Cambodia are listed in Table 12.
The assumptions in this study were: (1) 1250 jatropha trees per ha;
(2) 3.45 kg of fruit per year per tree; (3) 58 wt% of seed in one fruit;
(4) 33 wt% of oil content per seed; (5) 56% of jet fuel yielded
through hydro-processing and hydro-isomerization/cracking. For
various blendings of renewable fuels into petroleum aviation fuel,
the renewable fuel requirements, oil requirements, seed re-
quirements, fruit requirements, tree requirements as well as land
requirements are listed in Table 12. Based on the assumptions, it
can be seen from Table 12 that the fuel, oil, seed and fruit required
2.2, 3.9, 11.9 and 20.4 MM tonnes, respectively, if pure renewable
aviation fuel is applied, which needs approximately 6 billion trees.
The land requirement was calculated based on the assumption
mentioned in Section 2.1. The total land required for supplying this
airline company with pure renewable fuel is 4.7 MM ha. The total
territory of Taiwan is 3.6 MM ha, which is impossible to provide
100% renewable aviation fuel only from planting jatropha. Because
of the limited land in Taiwan, therefore, looking for more available
sources such as wastes for producing renewable jet fuel is the next
target. For the operating costs, the labor costs and partial material
consumptions in plantation, growing and harvesting sections such
as seedling, fertilizer, manure, vermicompost, urea, paraquat
dichloride, sulfur powder, safewin-carbaryl, diesel fuel and water
were increased in the proportions of land size. On the other hand,
the credits obtained from jatropha steam bark, leaf and latex were
also enhanced with the increase in trees. For the capital costs,
considering the large-scale land, renting the farming machines
such as bulldozer, leveling machine, excavator, tractor, drying ma-
chine and generator, as well as the transportation vehicles were
HEFA Gasification and Fischer-Tropsch Hybrid
Vegetable oil sugar mill sugar cane
956.3 95.6 41
357 1869 1518
91.7 321.3 184.1
97.7 52.3 66.7
25.4 38.2 38.3
1.74 1.91 1.99
Cardoso et al. (Cardoso et al., 2018) Cutz and Santana (Cutz and Santana, 2014)
Sugarcane Sweet Sorghum
189 N/A
281 648
237 507
846 497
360 148
 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17 15

Without
Cultivation Taiwan Thailand Cambodia
Capital cost
145.6 327.8 211.7 166.4
(MM $)
MJSP
4.0 6.3 4.8 4.2
($/liter jet)
Fig. 2. Cost evaluations and fuel selling prices with various locations.

Table 12
MJSPs of three countries with various jet fuel blendings.

Blending Fuel Required (MM Oil required (MM Seed Required (MM Fruit Required (MM Tree Land (MM MJSP ($/liter jet)
(%) tonnes) tonnes) tonnes) tonnes) (MM) hectare)
Taiwan Thailand Cambodia

10 0.22 0.39 1.18 2.04 592.14 0.47 4.83 1.85 1.77

20 0.44 0.78 2.37 4.09 1184.28 0.95 4.38 1.77 1.70
30 0.66 1.17 3.55 6.13 1776.42 1.42 4.30 1.87 1.80
40 0.88 1.56 4.74 8.17 2368.56 1.89 4.24 1.86 1.79
50 1.09 1.96 5.92 10.21 2960.70 2.37 4.14 1.82 1.76
60 1.31 2.35 7.11 12.26 3552.84 2.84 3.99 1.76 1.70
70 1.53 2.74 8.29 14.30 4144.98 3.32 4.06 1.82 1.76
80 1.75 3.13 9.48 16.34 4737.12 3.79 3.99 1.77 1.72
90 1.97 3.52 10.66 18.39 5329.26 4.26 4.12 1.85 1.78
100 2.19 3.91 11.85 20.43 5921.40 4.74 4.08 1.82 1.76

applied in this case. The capital and operating costs were signifi-
cantly increased with increasing the size of the land, however, the
increased costs were offset by the increasing jet fuel production as
well as the increasing credits obtained from the co-products. The
MJSPs of producing blended jet fuel in Taiwan were from $4.83/L to
$3.99/L, which was slightly decreased with increasing blending
portion. The blending portions of 60% and 80% showed the lowest
selling prices of fuel, less than $4.00/L. The ranges of MJSP for the
Thailand and Cambodia cases, from $1.87/L to $1.76/L and from
$1.80/L to $1.70/L respectively, were significantly lower than those
of Taiwan case, mainly due to the cheaper rental of land and
farming capitals as well as cheaper labor costs compared to Taiwan.
The MJSP differences between Taiwan and Thailand/Cambodia
cases can be ranging from $2.22/L to $2.98/L and from $2.27/L to
$3.06/L, respectively. Additionally, the MJSP differences between
Thailand and Cambodia cases ranged from $0.05/L to $0.08/L. It was
also interesting to see that the highest MJSP for Taiwan case was
10% blending, and for both Thailand and Cambodia cases were 30%.
Based on the results, 20% blendings in one airline company were
suggested for both Thailand and Cambodia cases.
4. Conclusions
This study continued the previous study, focusing on the front-
end engineering evaluations for producing jatropha-derived
renewable aviation fuel, including the farming and fruit-to-fuel
processes, based on the Taiwan situations. The capital in-
vestments of farming and fruit-to-fuel processes were 55.41% and
44.21% of the total capital investment (TCI), wherein the land cost
was the largest contributor. The total operating costs for the
farming process was $ () 0.003/L jet fuel, which the negative value
was attributed to the credits obtained from the cultivation co-
products, which were relatively low compared to the ones from
fruit-to-fuel process ($2.09/L jet fuel). The possible carbon emission
reduction revenue from plantation as well as intercropping of other
plants with jatropha trees would make the benefits to reduce the
planting costs for obtaining feedstock. The minimum jet fuel selling
price (MJSP) for the Taiwan case was calculated as $6.25/L jet fuel,
while the MJSP of $3.98/L jet fuel was obtained without cultivation.
Compared to other countries, Thailand ($4.80/L jet fuel) and
Cambodia ($4.23/L jet fuel), the HRJ fuel produced in Taiwan needs
16 P. Tongpun et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 226 (2019) 6e17
higher selling price, resulting from the prices of land and the costs
of labor. Considering the fuel blendings (10%e100%) to the annual
consumptions of aviation fuel in an airline company, which
required 0.47e4.74 MM ha of land, the MJSPs were within the range
of $3.99/L and $4.83/L. The MJSP slightly decreased with increasing
blending fraction. The MJSPs for Thailand and Cambodia cases were
also calculated to be significantly lower than the one of Taiwan case
due to the cheaper labor costs, farming capitals and land costs. Due
to the limitations of land in Taiwan, the feedstock sources such as
wastes would be more favorable for producing renewable aviation
fuel. In addition, the experience of front-end engineering design
obtained from this study could be applied to some other feedstock
sources more available locally.
Acknowledgements
This project was supported by the Ministry of Science and
Technology, Taiwan, through grant 107-2221-E-006 -135.
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