Scale-Up and Profitability Analysis of Bacterial Cellulose Production from Molasses

Abstract

Bacterial cellulose (BC) has great potential for large-scale production due to a large number of studies that have used cheap feedstocks, medium, and optimized reactors for reducing the production cost of bacterial cellulose which is the main problem of the production itself. However, these studies do not focus on the economic feasibility of bacterial cellulose production. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap by conducting a scale-up and profitability analysis of bacterial cellulose production using molasses from kombucha tea. The analysis involves creating process design and material balance of two scale-up scenarios based on the results from the laboratory, cost estimation, profitability analysis, and sensitivity analysis. The results showed that the simulated processes were not profitable with an NPV of -8.47 x 109 IDR for the small-scale and -269.5 x 1012 IDR for Industrial-scale due to very high fixed capital investment (8.4 x 109 IDR for the small-scale and 270 x 1012 IDR for industrial-scale) mostly due to high equipment cost (3,236.7 x 106 IDR for small-scale and 103,574 x 109) and low revenue due to the low yield of the process (12.6 x 106 IDR for small-scale and 529.52 x 109 IDR for industrial-scale) and long retention time of 14 days. However, the sensitivity analysis showed that the process could be profitable if the fixed capital investment and interest rates were decreased considerably. Further studies focusing on the economic feasibility of BC production from low-cost materials are needed for further understanding and for the feasible implementation of large-scale BC production.