eprintid: 16947 rev_number: 2 eprint_status: archive userid: 1 dir: disk0/00/01/69/47 datestamp: 2023-12-19 03:23:25 lastmod: 2023-12-19 03:23:25 status_changed: 2023-12-19 03:07:10 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Low, A. creators_name: Shamsuddin, R. creators_name: Siyal, A.A. title: Economic analysis of waste minimisation and energy recovery from spent bleaching earth ispublished: pub note: cited By 2 abstract: The bleaching stage in an edible oil refining process produces large amounts of spent bleaching earth (SBE) which contains high quantities of low-quality residual oil (20�50 w/w). SBE is usually disposed of in landfill, which is expensive, not environmentally friendly, and represents an inefficient use of a potentially useful and valuable by-product. This paper investigated different methods to utilise SBE for energy generation and determined the economic viability of the most promising method to achieve this. Extracting and recovering the oil from SBE using acetone for use as a fuel and regenerating the bleaching earth was the most attractive option because it achieved waste minimisation and energy recovery. In the best operating situation (fully automated, furnace and reboiler not run continuously) this process had net earnings of 213,682 and the payback period was 4 years. Despite this method being an attractive option based on waste minimisation and energy recovery, it was also complicated and had hazardous materials involved. The volumes being processed may not be large enough to make the process economically viable for an individual oil processor. If larger amounts of SBE were being generated or a centralised dedicated facility was built to handle SBE from several facilities, then this process could become more economically viable. In the case of a centralised facility, other considerations such as charging oil processing companies to take their SBE, reselling the regenerated bleaching earth or converting the extracted oil to biodiesel could further improve the economic viability of the process. © 2022 The Authors date: 2022 publisher: Elsevier Ltd official_url: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85123593881&doi=10.1016%2fj.clet.2022.100418&partnerID=40&md5=281759884714b7cf99ea954220efeda5 id_number: 10.1016/j.clet.2022.100418 full_text_status: none publication: Cleaner Engineering and Technology volume: 7 refereed: TRUE issn: 26667908 citation: Low, A. and Shamsuddin, R. and Siyal, A.A. (2022) Economic analysis of waste minimisation and energy recovery from spent bleaching earth. Cleaner Engineering and Technology, 7. ISSN 26667908