Simultaneous energy integration and intensification of the hydrotreating process to produce biojet fuel from jatropha curcas

Abstract The sustainable development of aviation sector relies on four strategies, being the use of biojet fuel as the most promising. There are different processes to produce biojet fuel; however, the hydrotreating process is certified by ASTM for its use in commercial and passenger flights. This process has several opportunity areas to decrease energy consumption and environmental impact. In this work, we propose the simultaneous energy integration and intensification of the hydrotreating process to produce biojet fuel from jatropha curcas oil. The released energy by the hydrodeoxygenation reactor is used to perform the energy integration of the process. Moreover, the separation zone of the process is intensified through thermally coupled distillation sequences, which are optimized with a multiobjective stochastic strategy. Results show that it is possible to reduce significantly the energy requirements of the process when energy integration is performed; however, the decreasing in the service costs is accompanied by an increasing in the equipment costs. On the other hand, the intensification of the separation zone does not lead to a decreasing in energy consumption. Therefore, net effect of both strategies on the total annual cost and biojet fuel prices is small, but significant decreasing in CO 2 emissions is achieved.