Industrial-Scale Activated Carbon Production from Agricultural Pea Waste: A Techno-Economic and Feasibility Study

This paper examines a novel approach to activated carbon (AC)production that uses pea waste (PW) and to what extent it iseconomically competitive with current production methods.Additionally, the outcome is to provide a detailed economicanalysis to understand whether this process is viable. The focusof this production route and the economic analysis will be on aUnited Kingdom (UK) basis. The plant will be located withinthe north UK to minimise storage and transportation costs. Italso has extensive links to other clusters of nearby industries thatwould produce from this process in air pollution control orwastewater treatments. The overall production process isdetailed, and detailed equipment specifications, including thesizing of equipment and utility requirements, were also given.Material balance calculations are carried out to assess theperformance and improve process design. An economicanalysis is performed to study the potential of biomass-to-ACconversion costs and commercialisation viability. The project’sinvestment is about £100 million. The cost of the plant can berecovered from year 3 (mid) for the 20-year life of the plant.The Net Present Value (NPV) is based on cumulative cash flow.The NPV is calculated as GBP 4,476,137,297.79 for 2020, andthe associated internal rate of return (IRR) and the return oninvestment (ROI) for the project are 55% and 52%, respectively